The Silversmith

A girl with no memory faces winter alone after murder

Ary has not eaten properly in months.

A girl with no memory faces winter alone after murder

Ary has not eaten properly in months. Alone in a cabin in Warrich's frozen north, she survives on broth and the occasional egg from two hens—the last living things in her care. Her mother Elowen left three months ago with barely an explanation. A fall in the cellar eighteen months earlier erased every memory before age seventeen, leaving her a blank page haunted by one indelible horror: finding her father Phillip and five-year-old brother Oliver dead in their bed, throats slit, X marks carved into their chests. When she treks four hours to the nearest village to buy bread, her two coins fall short. A vendor suggests sexual payment instead. She walks home with nothing but hunger and the knowledge that she is running out of time.

Gemma reveals a secret father; a scarred man kills her wolf

A pounding at dawn brings Gemma Tremaine—the fierce, sharp-tongued woman Ary's mother had forced out a year earlier. Gemma shatters what remains of Ary's world: Phillip was not her biological father. A man named Simeon Whitlock is—an ancient sorcerer who helped overthrow Nyrida's tyrants four centuries ago. Before Ary can process this, a wolf attacks her in the barn. A massive, dark-haired stranger with a jagged scar over his eye kills the beast with terrifying ease, lifts Ary into his arms, and carries her home. His name is Gavin Smyth, though the others call him only Smyth. He bandages her wound with practiced calm, and three more men—brothers Caz and Finn Sinclair, and Ary's cousin Ezra—stand waiting in her tiny kitchen.

Ary learns she's queen, prophesied, and betrothed to a stranger

Gemma lays out four hundred years of history. Simeon and his former friend Molochai unlocked divine magic, freed the continent, and installed Simeon's sister Christabel as queen. When Christabel chose another man over Molochai, he murdered her husband and infant daughter, cursed Christabel to a slow death, and plunged Nyrida into centuries of shadow. A deathbed prophecy declared a young queen of ancient blood would destroy Molochai—and that queen, Gemma insists, is Ary. She is also betrothed to Elias Winterton, grandson of the resistance leader, to unite their army. Ary stumbles outside in shock. Gavin follows with a blanket and her hat. His assessment is blunt: stay here and starve, or come and fight. Either way, the choice is terrible.

She torches her prison and steps into the unknown with Gavin Before they leave, Ary stands at the tree line and tells Gavin she wants to burn the house down. Without hesitation, he pours…