[Cursed be he who dares to touch her. Cursed be he who dares to hurt her. Cursed be he who spreads slander against her name. And, above all of them... cursed be I, for having learned to love her.] Thalia Roem Ghirta never knew the love of a family. Born of a forbidden union and rejected within the very walls of the palace, she learned to survive in silence-hiding her loneliness behind a blade of sharp words. Until an unexpected event brings her life crashing into that of a strange boy named "Kane." Arrogant, foul-mouthed, and impossibly irritating, he claims to be nothing more than a young man eager to study magic. Against her own will, Thalia becomes the one who brings him inside the palace. At first, Kane insists he's only there to learn. But the longer Thalia spends at his side, the more one question begins to haunt her: what is someone like him truly searching for within the Empire?