Deep in the shadows of France’s Swan Forest, a secret love blossoms—and a royal destiny awakens.

Briar Rosalie has always been sheltered by her three mysterious mothers, her life untouched by the cruel world beyond. Her secret friendship with Achilles Leroux sparks a love she’s never known—yet Achilles fears for her, knowing the darkness lurking just beyond the forest’s edge.

Urging Briar Rosalie to uncover the truth about her identity, Achilles finds her revelations more terrifying than either expected. On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, Briar Rosalie must claim her place as queen—but she dreads the brutal legacy of her three royal sisters, notorious for their cruelty and the slaughter of their parents.

When Achilles and his brother Paris attend a palace ball, the treacherous world Briar Rosalie tried to avoid closes in—especially with the arrival of their mother’s sinister fiancé, Raoul Marcourt, appointed to hunt the lost princess.

As secrets unravel and danger surrounds them, Briar Rosalie and Achilles are drawn into a deadly game of power and deception, culminating in a chilling confrontation with the fearsome Dragon Queen herself.

In a world where nothing is as it seems, can love survive the fire of a crown forged in blood?