As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.

The first letter arrived the day my husband was buried. It was postmarked from the state penitentiary, and contained a single sentence:

The Three Kingdoms are at war, but Meilin’s father refuses to answer the imperial draft. Trapped by his opium addiction, he plans to sell Meilin for her dowry.

When Anna Pendragon was born, Merlin “Through all the ages, and in the hearts of men, you will be forgotten.”

After discovering she’s prophesied to save the realm, Aya’s duty should be clear: return home with once-sworn enemy Will to serve their queen in the coming war against a rival kingdom…one whose pursuit of dark magic could bring the realm to its knees.