The first king named this nation of refugees "Home." The last bastion of civilization in a world overrun by beasts and endless forests. Home’s towering walls promise succor, prosperity, order. Outside, only death waits in the dark spaces between trees…

 

       Aevelynne is a practical woman. She knows Home has no place for adult orphans but refuses to waste away on city streets, dreaming of parents who don’t exist. So when Aevelynne lands a position as chambermaid to the brilliant but trying Duke Milandre, a role she is woefully underqualified for, convincing the Duke to keep her becomes her top priority.

       His patronage thrusts her directly into the society she’d sought to avoid, exposing Aevelynne to people who know far more about her past than she does. As the Duke struggles to track down a crime lord who plagues the castle, Aevelynne awakens a centuries-old narrative that reveals Home, and herself, for what they truly are. Lie after lie strains the tenuous connection she has to her homeland and its people.

       But when the truth intersects with the Duke’s case, Aevelynne must push past her mounting alienation from the kingdom that raised her to help preserve it. Born from nothing, and into nothing, Aevelynne seemed destined only to keep a secret.

       But nothing breeds faster than secrets.