will be expected to take the reins of power. But the boy is not well-suited for his role. His heart is soft where it should be hard. He is credulous when he should be suspicious. He is tired of being tested and trained to inherit a legacy he is not sure he wants. But Davico is inextricably tangled in fate's net and his doubts can only summon ruin. In the shade of Navola's colonnaded porticoes, his family's enemies gather and plot. In the shadows of its deep catacombs, assassins sharpen their stiletto knives. In the kingdoms of Cerulean Peninsula, princes and despots muster their armies. Davico's only hope rests in the heart of a girl whose own family was destroyed by the di Regulai, and in a crystalline orb the size of a human head, said to be the eye of a long-dead dragon.