The Choosing

Twenty girls will be chosen.

Nineteen will die.

One will become queen.

For centuries, the kingdom has celebrated The Choosing, a deadly competition held once every generation when the prince comes of age. Twenty young women are selected from a lottery created the year he was born and brought to the royal castle to compete for his hand in marriage.

To the kingdom, it is an honor.

To Ember Everhart, it is a death sentence.

Raised as an ordinary Fire wielder in a quiet village, Ember never expected to be chosen. Torn from her family and thrust into a world of ruthless competitors, political games, and impossible challenges, survival becomes her only goal.

But something is wrong.

The longer Ember remains at the castle, the more strange things begin happening around her. Powers she shouldn't possess begin to awaken. Ancient records disappear. Questions no one wants answered start leading her toward a truth buried deep beneath the kingdom's foundations.

A truth someone has spent centuries trying to erase.

As tensions rise between a prince bound by duty and a guard willing to risk everything to help her uncover the truth, Ember finds herself at the center of a conspiracy far older than The Choosing itself.

Because some secrets were never meant to be found.

And some girls were never meant to exist.