The Real Princess

"They stole her birthright. Her cousin took her face. Now she’s striking a bargain with the cursed shadow king who could burn both their kingdoms to ash."

For twenty years, Natalia believed she was nothing more than an orphan apothecary in a quiet backwater village. But when a surge of forbidden golden dawn breaks through her hands, the truth comes hunting: she is the lost heir of Aurelion, declared dead the night her royal parents were butchered in their beds. On the throne sits her cousin Delilah, a pampered, rotting counterfeit draining the marrow of captive sorcerers just to mimic the magic she stole. With an imperial death warrant on her head, Natalia’s only sanctuary lies past the frozen border of Nocthar, straight into the court of King Lucien Draven. Ruthless, sharp-tongued, and terrifyingly beautiful, Lucien is slowly rotting alive. Bound by an ancient curse eating his ribs and sanity, he’s one bad day away from becoming the living vessel for a primordial void. Her Sacred Light can hold back his darkness; his shadow army can help reclaim her crown. The contract is simple: an alliance forged in iron and blood. Except their magic doesn’t just align, it detonates. The closer they get, the thinner the boundary becomes between their minds, their power, and their mutual ruin. As an engineered war threatens to tear the continent apart, Natalia must decide if she’s willing to sacrifice her divine fire to save a dying king, or let the shadows swallow the only man who ever saw her worth.