Dark, lush and dangerously romantic, E.L. Lewis’s sweeping romantasy follows an imperial soldier and a prisoner bound by forbidden desire, buried truths, and a fate powerful enough to bring an empire to its knees.

Aria Morryn is the Empire’s perfect soldier. Loyal, disciplined, and raised to obey without question. When stationed at the Iron Hold she expects cruelty. Monsters. What she doesn’t expect is him.

Malakai Varos is the Empire’s newest prisoner. Powerful, brooding, darkness personified. And yet, he is the first person to look at Aria like he truly sees her… like he’s been waiting centuries for her.

As rebellion rises and an ancient evil spreads across the realm, Aria uncovers secrets buried deep within her past. Forced to choose between duty and desire, she finds herself at the center of a battle as personal as it is catastrophic. And at the heart of it stands the one man capable of undoing her completely.

Malakai would kill for her.

Die for her.

Rewrite destiny for her.

Their collision was fated. An unbreakable bond written in fire and ice. But the deeper Aria falls into the Empire’s lies, the more she begins to suspect the most terrifying truth of all: she was never meant to serve it.

She was meant to destroy it.