Prince Valerian Sylvani returns from war as the victorious heir of the Eternal Spring, expecting honor, praise, and the approval of the father he has served for years.

Instead, he finds a ghost standing beside the throne.

Lysander Starling?his childhood friend, the man he was told had died, the wound he never stopped carrying?is alive. But he is no longer free. Dressed in royal green, wearing a silver collar at his throat, Lysander is introduced before the entire court as the High King's consort.

The beautiful Sylvan Court is built on flowers, music, and polished lies. Beneath its eternal spring are tribute wagons, missing servants, erased battle records, and a magic system fed by bodies Valerian unknowingly helped deliver through his victories. The deeper he digs, the more he realizes that his father did not merely deceive him?he shaped him into a key for a monstrous design.

Lysander knows the truth. He also knows the price of speaking it. Bound by collar, grief, and the soul-thread of his dead sister, he has survived by turning himself into a blade sharp enough to wound the king from inside the palace. But Valerian's return changes everything. Old trust becomes accusation. Anger becomes longing. Every touch risks awakening the very magic used to imprison Lysander.

To save him, Valerian must choose between the throne he was born to inherit and the man his kingdom tried to turn into a weapon.

But in the Sylvan Court, love is not enough.

Not unless it is willing to become rebellion.