Annalise has spent her entire life surviving her father, the revered sheriff of South Hollow. When one violent night finally pushes her past the point of no return, she stabs him in self-defense. Bleeding, terrified, and convinced she’s just killed the most powerful man in town, she and her best friend Matt flee into the storm… only to be caught by the men who should have been protecting her.

Instead of recognizing the truth of what happened, the judge sentences them both to ten years of mandatory service in the Thandroanian military - an unprecedented punishment that lands them at Scion Military Academy. Scion molds elite soldiers, dragon riders, spell casters… and, in the shadows beneath it all, Ghost Walkers, the kingdom’s covert spies who operate where laws and light don’t reach.

Thrown into a world of dragons, illusion-warped survival courses, brutal combat instructors, and a raging twenty-year war sparked by entire families disappearing without a trace, then igniting when a Thandroanian border town was razed under the veil of night, its streets reduced to ash, its people to bone.

Now, the king needs soldiers.

And the continent needs spies.