Ever since the Kryser Trials, the Royal Picking has been a waited for event. Every ten years, thirty girls and thirty boys , ages sixteen through twenty, are randomly chosen from the villages to win a chance to be Queen and King of Akontis. The reign of the past Queen and King is up and the Tenth Royal Picking has begun. In the Stifles, Xiernia, an eighteen year old girl, finds herself trying to decide if she wants to be Queen or not, though it isn't even up to her. It isn't up to anyone. Do you want to be Queen?

[PUBLISHED under LIB] #2. "If liking you is a crime then why don't you convict me, attorney?"

[PUBLISHED under LIB] #1. "If pleading guilty means protecting you, I will."

For months Summer is trapped in a cellar with the man who took her - and three other girls: Rose, Poppy, and Violet. His perfect, pure flowers. His family. But flowers can't survive long cut off from the sun, and time is running out...