
Once, she was a princess. Now, she is little more than a servant in her own castle. After the death of her father, Solstice lives under the shadow of her cruel stepmother and venomous stepsisters, clinging only to the necklace her father left her—a trinket that, for reasons she cannot explain, her family fears as though it burns.
But when Flynn, a reckless thief with more courage than sense, stumbles into her life carrying a stolen portmanteau, Solstice’s fragile world fractures. Inside the chest is no treasure, but bones—old, shrouded in black, and hidden deep beneath the palace of a neighboring kingdom. Bones worth guarding, worth killing for.
Whispers of the past resurface: of the Courts who once ruled with magic, of the witches who fought them, of the crystal that burned the power from the world. The secret buried in those bones could resurrect that long-dead magic—or destroy what little remains of the kingdoms forever.
Caught between loyalty to a crumbling crown and the pull of a truth that could unmake everything, Solstice must decide: protect the secret and live as her stepmother’s pawn, or unearth it and risk becoming the spark that reignites a war no kingdom can survive.
And somewhere in the shadows, the Courts are waiting.

