"I've chased raiders, beasts, and honor my whole life. Now I chase you--and I don't stop until I catch what I want." The Saint Sister Haelein is a creature of the Holy Synod—pure, devout, and gifted with the golden power of Sanctification. Sent to the brutal Northern Marches to heal a mysterious ice-sickness, she carries only her faith and a silver amulet. She was raised to believe that desire is a stain and that her heart belongs only to the Light. But she never prepared for the man who rules the frost. The Warden Colden Ivarsson Nordvhar, the Duke of the North, is as hard as the glaciers he commands. Known as the Shield of Frelhaeim, he is a man of iron discipline and earned arrogance. He views southern priests as vipers and their nuns as fragile trinkets. Until he meets Haelein. Her light doesn’t just irritate him—it starves him. The Forbidden Hunger When a deadly blizzard traps the Saint and the Warden together, the clinical peace of the convent meets the primal hunger of the mountains. Colden doesn't just want Haelein to heal his people; he wants to possess the fire in her blood. He wants to see her silver hair spread across his furs and hear his name whispered in the place of her prayers. As ancient beasts stir in the ice and the King demands a political marriage, Haelein must choose: Does she remain the hollow vessel of a distant god, or does she surrender to the man who promises to show her a new kind of divinity? In a world of eternal winter, the brightest light is born in the deepest shadow.

a forbidden romance. a tale of duty and devotion. epic fantasy.