Brienna is an arden, a student of the five passions – art, music, wit, dramatics and knowledge. On the summer solstice in her seventeenth year, she hopes to become mistress of the passion – one who has mastered her area of study. But Brienna knows that she was not granted a coveted place at her passion-house because of talent, like her arden-sisters. She is here because someone wished her hidden...

Brienna is fast becoming Queen Isolde’s most trusted counsellor; and with every day, the love she shares with Cartier deepens. But there are those who do not accept Brienna, unable to see beyond her past, while some remain faithful to the Lannons and would do anything to tear the new queen down. And when Brienna discovers the true, shocking identity of someone within the castle, it threatens everything she holds dear …

Evadne is finally going to be reunited with her older sister, Halcyon, who has been serving in the queen’s army for eight long years. But when Halcyon unexpectedly appears a day early, Evadne knows something is gravely wrong. Halcyon has been charged with a heinous crime and though her life is spared, she has been sentenced to fifteen years of punishment – five years of hard labour, five years of imprisonment and five years serving the house that she has wronged.