The Prince in Plain Sight

Heir by birth, stranger by choice.

When Prince Lysander is ordered to seal a political marriage with the princess of a rival kingdom, he defies the crown and vanishes into his own city, disguised as a penniless traveller named Ash. In the smoke and clang of a bordertown forge, he meets River Bramson: a blacksmith's daughter with fire in her voice, grief in her past, and no mercy for the king whose taxes bled her family and sent her brother to die.

As Ash earns a place in River's fiercely loyal, rule bound home, sparks fly into a slow, searing burn. But the city is tightening like a snare: weapons are vanishing, a brutal captain hunts for scapegoats, and rumours from the palace whisper of insult and treachery when "the prince" fails to appear. To clear River's father of a charge that could mean the gallows, Ash and River plunge into tunnels beneath the palace and the thorns of courtly deceit, only for the truth to rip off his mask.

Betrayal shatters trust, loyalties collide, and an arranged marriage becomes a weapon. To save the people he's come to love and the woman who will not bow. Lysander must forge a new kind of crown, tempered by iron and earned by choice. Will he trade a throne for a life set ablaze with River? Or will duty douse the fire they kindled?