"If I truly wanted to serve the queen, I'd only have to cut my throat."

After her mother's execution, ten-year-old Reina Sangrey begged Damien Arden-a wealthy, charming, criminally-minded aristocrat-for refuge. The terms to repay her debt, ensuring her and her brother's safety, were simple: survive the Armory, and rise to the Queensguard.

At twenty-four, Reina is initiated into Thera's Armory, just as duty, and destiny required. On the eve of her first trial, her true gift reveals itself . . . and it is anything but ordinary. A once-in-a-century power emerges: something worth more than dragons or griffons-even more than a prince. Reina is the demon wielder, a prophecy of war promised to the Crown.

Years as Arden's viper, training as an assassin in the shadows, hadn't prepared her to be the greatest weapon the Crown had ever seen. Nor did it exclude her from the deadly Armory trials where fewer than half of the first-years would survive. No longer disposable, and overwhelmed with power, Reina has to learn how to control her demons with the unwelcome help of Prince Farran and his own rare gift. Despite her strong will, Reina finds herself drawn to the brooding prince, but it couldn't matter.

Surviving the Armory was her purpose, killing the queen was her destiny, and there wasn't anything in the realm that could change her course.

Reina was born a traitor, and traitors die alone.