In a peninsula splintered among feuding clans, power runs in blood ? and magic answers to only a chosen few.
Linnard is a highborn son raised behind castle walls: sheltered, soft, and wholly unready for the world sharpening its knives beyond them. When the fragile truce between the clans begins to fracture, he is thrown from the practice yard into the path of a widening war.
Years on the march teach him the blade, the price of loyalty, and the weight of a name he never asked to carry. A fellowship of unlikely allies gathers around him ? warriors, scouts, and a warlock the others only half trust ? while across the valley the Obsidian fortress waits, and the clan that holds it has its own design on the peninsula's future. To keep the alliance from splintering, Linnard must become something harder than the boy who once feared the older children at his father's table.
But every crown is heavier than it looks ? and on the eve of battle, he is learning the oldest lesson of power: no one is your friend.
The Winter Mage saga begins.
