Book of Ancients, Volume IV, Passage iii

Queen Diem has a deadly secret-one that has already cost the lives of everyone she's ever loved. In a land long ruled by men, she must forge her own path as the first female ruler the kingdom of Domhan has seen in two centuries, a task that will be dangerous at best, and fatal at worst. If she is to survive, she must take a throne she's never wanted and enforce the bloody, semi-annual ritual of the Ivory Rite, a practice that keeps more than half of her people oppressed.

Living as a prisoner in a castle made of ice and glass, she's plagued by dreams of Mam, the kind-eyed woman who raised her, and Colter, her childhood best friend. The responsibility of their deaths is almost too much to bear, until she meets a boy with familiar eyes and hair kissed by fire; a boy with a startling resemblance to someone long thought dead. The gift of a seemingly innocent trinket and an ominous prophecy will cause Diem to question everything she thought she knew.