She’s been dead a thousand years. She’s angry. And now she wants her throne back.

Irina was a powerful Mage who tried to crush the nations under her iron fist, only to be thwarted by the selfless sacrifice of magic’s guardian. A millennia later, her cult of fanatics plots to bring her back.

When magicians go missing, Guardsman Keelan Rea is charged with bringing the victims home. His gift of Truthreading made him the nation’s top investigator, but this search tests even his skill. The hunt gets personal when a woman he cares for is taken. The kidnappers’ trail leads Keelan across the border where he finds a trusted neighbor massing troops for a surprise attack.

A thousand miles away, Princess Jess Vester is destined for the throne. In her heart, duty battles love. When her mother tries to marry her to an obnoxious backwater Duke, she chooses her boyfriend over the Crown and flees the capital. The same masked men taking magicians now haunt her trail, threatening more than just her freedom.

Time is running out for Keelan to save the magicians and stop a war, and for Jess to save herself.

And if the cultists succeed and Irina rises again, the world will fall.