A Portrait of Iron

Aspen is a shadow and she prefers it that way.

While her sister Elowen wears the silks and basks in the adoration of their parents, Aspen moves through the periphery with a charcoal stick in one hand and a hidden blade in the other. She is a woman who has learned that visibility is a trap.

But when an invitation arrives from the King of the North, Aspen finds herself in a world of ice, iron, and a mountain of a man with a voice like grinding stone. King Henry sees the things others miss, and for the first time in her life, the girl in the shadows is being watched.

In a den of vipers where every glance is a gambit, Aspen must decide if she is willing to step into the light, and if the man on the throne is someone she can trust, or the most dangerous predator of all.