A prince cast aside learns that stories can wound just as deeply as blades—and that sometimes the only way out is to rewrite the tale. High King Cardan Greenbriar, once a neglected boy in the stables of Elfhame, becomes the monster he thinks stories demand. Years later, his wife, High Queen Jude Duarte, pulls him toward something softer, riskier: love. On a hunt in the mortal world, old legends wake—and the past Cardan despises becomes the key to surviving the present.