Valk Theun was born with two hearts and a destiny he never asked for. Last in line to a throne he wants no part of, Valk flees his father’s court after uncovering a truth that marks him for death: someone close to House Theun is in league with Ancev, the undead king whose Sulyn have waged war on Ebdunmel for three centuries. Alone and hunted, carrying nothing but a stolen book of forbidden knowledge, he stumbles into the one people his family has always despised — the Banshees of Kalvendine — and finds, for the first time, something like sanctuary. Hidden behind a stranger’s name at the School of the Archaic Arts, Valk discovers a gift the histories have no word for: an innate healer’s power that shouldn’t exist. He builds a life. He makes friends who don’t know his blood. And every night, the same dream finds him — a tower, a door painted like a summer sky, and a voice that calls him toward a destiny he still doesn’t understand. But answers cost more than Valk is prepared to pay. One by one, the people he loves are taken from him — to war, to the undead, to the silence of those who could have warned him. And in the deepest heart of the Silent Forest waits a teacher. Ebdunmel has one prophecy left to fulfill. The ballads never say whether Valk Theun is the one who saves this land — or the one who finally breaks it.