To Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red thief from the poverty-stricken Stilts where the only possible future is conscription into the empire’s endless war, it seems like nothing will ever change, especially now her brothers and her best friend have all been called up to spill their blood for their oppressor.

Then she finds herself recruited to work in the Silver Palace by an enigmatic stranger who turns out to be none other than the crown prince himself, Tiberias Calore. Here, surrounded by the people she hates the most, Mare discovers that she possesses a deadly power of her own – one that threatens to upend their entire world order.

Fearful of Mare’s potential, the Silvers hide her in plain view, declaring her a long-lost Silver princess, now engaged to Maven Calore, their future king’s brother. Even though she knows one misstep means certain death, Mare still works silently to help the Red Guard, a militant resistance group, in a desperate guerrilla effort to bring down the Silver regime once and for all.

But this is a world not only of ultimate bloodshed but also of ultimate betrayal, and Mare has been sucked into a dangerous dance – Red against Silver, prince against prince, brother against brother, head against heart . . .

‘The truth is what I make it. I could set this world on fire and call it rain.’