Islia was put to sleep a century ago and has spent those years beneath black waves, waiting. In the world above, Orision, King of Selanthia, has been dreaming of a flame impossibly burning underwater. When he is told that this may be the answer to his life's greatest mystery, he wastes no time in diving in. Orision is shocked to find that the flame is, as it turns out, a glowing red-haired Islia. And she is his mate. But the spell that saved Islia's life all those years ago has come at a cost, and now, the clock is ticking. Oris, the man who feels nothing and trusts no one, finds himself unwillingly but fiercely devoted to a skittish woman he is destined to both love and lose. Islia, burdened by a sacred duty and devastating loss alike, finds it hard to trust the son of the man who killed her family and looks at her like she's his. But once they fall... There is no going back.

Avelin has spent the last eight months paying for a crime she did not commit, married to a man who hates her. When the night of her twenty-fifth birthday finally comes, she spreads her wings for the first time and leaves the nightmare that is the court of Cairavelle behind. Asterion has spent the last eight months living a lie and extracting his pound of flesh from the wrong hide. When he finally realizes the extent of his mistakes, and what the price for them will be, he is prepared to fix what he broke or die trying. And he just might have to. Now, with the royal families and their courts in shambles, the hidden world of the Alatus is about to collapse in on itself. Avelin and Asterion must find a way to hold it all together, or risk losing everything and everyone they have ever loved.