The Prince Inside the Golden Apple
Lina Pierce has learned to survive by keeping her head down. A hardworking gardener in the royal grounds, she expects her days to be measured in pruning, hauling, and tending the neglected corners of the Palace of Sunken Glass. But in a forgotten hollow, Lina discovers an impossible sight: a radiant golden apple that trembles like a living heart. From inside it comes the desperate voice of a young man, begging not to be taken to the King's harvest feast and cut open like an ordinary piece of fruit.Although she knows that forbidden magic could cost her freedom-or her life-Lina cannot abandon a suffering creature. She hides the apple and tries to protect it from the Iron Watch, whose instruments hunt out illicit enchantments. The rescue draws her into secrets buried beneath the palace, where old magic, royal history, and the disappearance of a prince have been bound together for years.The voice belongs to Theo, the lost Crown Prince, trapped in an enchanted state while the kingdom carried on without him. As Lina works to understand the curse and the forces that have kept him hidden, her ordinary knowledge of living things becomes essential. Yet the more she learns, the more perilous the rescue becomes. The palace is not simply a place of splendor; it is a system of watchful guards, concealed records, and dangerous interests determined to preserve its version of the past.Freeing Theo demands more than courage. The magic exacts a price, and the act that restores his life threatens to take something precious from Lina in return. When Theo finally returns to the world as a breathing young man, he recognizes the girl who saved him-but Lina's memories of him have been stripped away, leaving her to look upon the prince as a stranger.THE PRINCE INSIDE THE GOLDEN APPLE is an enchanting fantasy of forbidden magic, buried royal secrets, and compassion that dares to defy power. With an intimate emotional core and a bittersweet reckoning over the cost of miracles, Lina and Theo's story asks whether love can endure when memory itself has been sacrificed.
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