MY LIFE'S TALE ENDED, AND BEGAN, WITH FIREWORKS.

LIONYRA VARA is not who she seems.

A humble immigrant baker living in Mithra-Sha, Lio hides a bitter secret: she is truly the sole inheritor of the ruling regime in the neighboring country of Amere-Del. And now, against her will, Lio is going back-to the land of her worst fears and lifelong nightmares.

And she won't be going alone: the life of her oldest friend hangs in the same cruel balance. Their only hope for freedom is to outwit the people who seek to enslave them to the fate they left behind.

But to do it, they must first find their way back to each other.

RYKER KASSIAN is a man caught between desperation and redemption.

A legendary pirate swimming in insurmountable debt, Ryker sees only one way to slip the noose for himself and his beloved crew: by offering the runaway Delina as a ransom for a lofty sum. But when the lost heir offers him a chance at something more-by helping her hunt down her missing friend-Ryker seizes the opportunity without a second thought.

It might be his only chance to fix everything he's broken...and save his crew from slaughter.

As their hunt takes them to hidden pirate cities, sinister port towns, and the treacherous heart of Amere-Del where revolution threatens to ignite, all of their secrets and schemes collide. Backed against the tenuous balance of an impending civil war, Lio and Ryker have no choice but to confront the bitter truths they've fled from, the causes they've betrayed, the schemes for their destruction...and a rising attraction they both deny.

And with a ruthless regime seeking both their heads, they must choose which side of the line they stand on-whether they remain enemies divided, or become allies in the fight to shape their own destinies.