On the sun-scorched world of Valtoria, where history is forbidden and questioning the Coalition can cost an entire family their lives, two siblings secretly read a banned book beneath a lonely tree. What begins as harmless curiosity quickly unravels into something far more dangerous when Alaric admits he has visited the forbidden castle ruins. As old beliefs begin to crack and forbidden truths linger just beyond reach, Clarimond must decide whether the stories she has always been told are really lies-or whether the lies are the stories themselves.