My standing here is no different from a prisoner's.
"Elise," the second daughter of House Fiallar, a child her own father despised, is sent through the December snow to Luffe, capital of the Greater Kingdom, as a diplomatic pawn nobody wants.
She leaves her old name behind in her homeland and begins again as "Lilian."
Her new home is Rundes, a round tower keep perched on a snowbound hill, and nothing about it feels familiar: water that flows from golden pipes, a reclusive lord who never shows their face, and a maid with eyes black as starlight and a small mole on her left cheek.
A beauty that stole Lilian's breath the instant she saw her...
may be the most dangerous secret this castle holds.