352 pages |Hardcover

From the author of the breakout hitHeart of Ironcomes a sweeping fairy-tale-inspired stand-alone fantasy adventure filled with fun and engaging characters, surprising twists, unexpected romance, and a dark forest rife with secrets and monsters.

Cerys is safe in the kingdom of Aloriya.

Here there are no droughts, disease, or famine, and peace is everlasting. It has been this way for hundreds of years, since the first king made a bargain with the Lady who ruled the forest that borders the kingdom. But as Aloriya prospered, the woods grew dark, cursed, and forbidden. Cerys knows this all too well: when she was young, she barely escaped as the woods killed her friends and her mother. Now Cerys carries a small bit of the cursethe magicin her blood, a reminder of the day she lost everything. The most danger she faces now, as a gardeners daughter, is the annoying fox who stalks the royal gardens and wont leave her alone.

As a new queen is crowned, however, things long hidden in the woods descend on the kingdom itself. Cerys is forced on the run, her only companions the small fox from the garden, a strange and powerful bear, and the magic in her veins. Its up to her to find the legendary Lady of the Wilds and beg for a way to save her home. But the road is darker and more dangerous than she knows, and as secrets from the past are uncovered amid the teeth and roots of the forest, its going to take everything she has just to survive.

Acclaimed author Ashley Poston returns with a dark, lush, fairy-tale-inspired fantasy about the broken pieces inside all of us and the courage it takes to put them back together again.