Most wounds heal with time…                                   

… Others are felt across millennia. 

Evina Ariss is a failsafe. Like the priestesses before her, Evina’s life is bound to an enchanted gate hidden in the mountains of her island home. If she dies without an heir to take her place, anyone could unleash the world-ending force imprisoned within. When she learns she’s betrothed to Rein—the man she has loved for years—Evina should be content. But then some otherworldly creature nearly kills her, and though the island’s elders dismiss it as happenstance, she senses the truth: someone is trying to open the gate.

Evina’s prime suspect is the mysterious mainlander, Ashwin Lorne. Armed, cunning, and dangerously handsome, Ashwin claims to be an emissary sent to negotiate trade. But Evina is certain he’s come searching for the lost keys to the gate—and sets out to prove it. What she uncovers instead is a chilling secret about the elders’ involvement in her predecessor’s death. Meanwhile, Rein has secrets of his own, and this dashing mainlander is the only one who seems to understand Evina’s growing fear and doubt.

As the first key surfaces, Evina must decide who to trust with her life before the remaining keys are found. The wrong choice could free the cataclysmic force she has devoted her life to containing. And the pull she feels toward Ashwin is older and more perilous than either of them knows.