Winter has spent seventeen years knowing she doesn't quite belong. She just never expected there to be a reason.
Raised on the tropical shores of the Ivory Isles by Park-the only family she has ever known-Winter's life changes when the wolven come for her.
Suddenly, the strange pull she has always felt toward the elements is impossible to ignore. The answers lead beyond everything she knows and into the buried history of The Vale-a land founded as a refuge for the hunted, but built on secrets no one seems willing to tell her completely.
At the center of those secrets is Winter.
Her bloodline.
Her impossible connection to the elements.
And the Semestral, pieces of ancient armor tied to old gods, forgotten wars, and a power others are willing to kill to possess.
With Park beside her and a ragtag group of unlikely allies slowly becoming something dangerously close to family, Winter must cross kingdoms, survive ancient trials, and untangle a history where every answer seems to uncover another lie.
Because the deeper she travels into The Vale, the harder it becomes to tell the difference between the people protecting her-and the people deciding her fate.
Winter was told she might be the key to saving The Vale.
No one bothered to ask whether The Vale deserved saving exactly as it was.
Winter is not a season. It's a warning. For nothing burns like the cold.