The prince of Adebgia was foretold an inevitable death on the day he meets a commoner who will turn seventeen that day. Fortunately, meeting a pauper in the palace is rather unlikely—there were no invitations for someone else’s nameday, so there’s no cause for worry.
But an apprentice cobbler named Ruaom wasn’t warned about any dangers—the rank wasn’t right. And while running from the guards, he didn’t recognize the royal garden in the park behind the wrought-iron fence, stuffed with deadly spells for uninvited guests. That’s how the boy ended up where salvation is impossible for an ordinary person.
Why didn’t the protective charms kill Ruaom? What force, at the meeting of the prince and a poor man, silently opened the earth beneath their feet? And why, instead of hanging this simple craftsman for such a brazen intrusion, did they make him a bodyguard of his Highness? There are no explanations for the seventeen-year-old boy yet. Not—yet.