Every ten years, the valley bleeds. Every ten years, the smoke rises red. Until hers.
Fern Grovekeeper has spent twenty years being no one—the Keeper’s daughter, raised on funeral rites in the lowest caste of a sealed valley where blood is currency and the Blackwells own the mountain that collects it.
Then the Thirteenth Count burns her blood white.
Torn from her family and taken to Blackwell Keep, Fern is given a new name, a new wardrobe, and a tutor: Cassius Blackwell, heir to the family that has ruled the valley for generations.
He’s cold, exacting, and far too observant. She’s supposed to learn how to belong among the Highbloods.
Instead, she uncovers a secret buried beneath the mountain—one powerful enough to unravel the Count itself.
