Emmi Laughlaw has trained her whole life for this moment-the Quindecennial Picking Day, when fifteen-year-olds are tested for the honor of becoming Gifted. With her best friend Aruvyn at her side, Emmi dreams of rising above the underground villages, serving her kingdom, and carving her name into history.
But the trials are not what they seem. When Emmi is forced to make an impossible choice, everything she thought she knew about loyalty, family, and sacrifice shatters.
Now burdened with a Gift she never wanted and haunted by voices from the past, Emmi must navigate a world of betrayal, monsters both human and inhuman, and the growing suspicion that the kingdom's greatest enemies may not lurk outside its walls-but within them.