marierandolf
Magic is born from promises-and broken by them.
Sixteen-year-old Cassandra Martin used to believe the world was held together by simple things-warm dinners, shared laughter, whispered promises in the dark. But the night the Dominion raids her home, she learns how quickly those small things can shatter.
With her mother dead, her little brother traumatized, and her best friend Milo dragged away, Cass flees into the mountains with a band of runaway teens hiding from the regime that hunts kids like them. The Dominion takes children with Resonance. Children who can hear the hum of magic buried beneath the world.
Children like Finn.
Children like Cass.
When a dormant power inside her wakes, Cass discovers her bloodline is tied to the Locus, an ancient network of Keeper magic the Dominion has spent decades trying to control. And when Milo returns-trained, altered, and bound to her in ways neither of them understands-Cass realizes the Dominion didn't take him to punish her.
They took him because of her.
Dragged into the heart of the Citadel, Cass must navigate deadly experiments, old memories buried in living stone, and a power she can't yet control. The deeper she goes, the more the crystal at her throat burns-and the more the bond between her and Milo spirals toward something dangerous.
And when Finn is taken into the depths of the Citadel, Cass must break every promise she ever made to keep the one that matters most.
Some promises protect you.
Some bind you.
And some are powerful enough to change the world.