Five families. Five dead princesses. A soul that refuses to pay and a soul that refuses to be sold. Adrian thought he understood the world he had been born into and the house he had been born to lead. But when his mother comes to him, the words "you've been chosen" on her lips, he realizes that he understood nothing. He loses everything...except his life. And now he must fight to keep that, and the lives of so many others, too. Valerie was born and raised in Oklahoma, USA. In her youth, epic fantasy worlds such as the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms worlds gave her an appetite for the darker side of fantasy where the heroes aren't always clean, and the villains aren't always the bad guys. Now she writes her own stories of how even tarnished heroes can try to bring some light into a very dark and dangerous world.