Shadow and Rose - Megan D Harding

In a world shaped like an hourglass, eternal Spring was never meant to last.

High above, in the city of Luminara, the sun never sets and flowers never fade. For twenty-two years, Rosalie has stood at the altar of glass as the Gilded Goddess of the Sun Court-revered, radiant, and utterly hollow.

Because she has no magic.

When the King of the Underworld takes her below the World-Lock waterfall, the world calls it abduction.

But the truth is older than light.

Beneath the falling magic, ancient obsidian Spindles bind the flow between realms, sustaining the Sun's endless bloom while the Underworld is denied its dawn. The cycle of seasons was broken centuries ago in desperation-and both realms have been paying for it ever since.

Azrael has ruled the Underworld for four hundred years without kneeling to anyone. Controlled. Devoted to a dying realm. Guarding a hope that has never awakened.

Until the night of the Convergence of Shadow.

When the Veil thins and a black dragon rises from the mist and bows to Rosalie, the binding trembles-and the king who has never bent begins to fracture.

Rosalie was never divine.

She was contained.

In the Underworld, her power does not bloom. It unravels.

As shadow becomes refuge and devotion turns dangerous, she must decide who she truly is: the goddess of a perfect lie, or the fracture that will restore the world.

To mend the hourglass, she must break what was built in fear.

Even if it means ending eternal Spring.

Even if it means choosing a crown that kneels.

Because some queens are raised in the light.

And some rise from the dark.