Once and Future Queen

Londinium, the last stronghold of the Romans left in Britannia, remains in a delicate state of peace with the pagan kingdoms that surround it. Within its mighty walls defiance means death and capital punishment is decreed by public vote. As the only daughter of a powerful merchant, Cassandra is betrothed to Marcus, the most eligible bachelor in the city and the last scion of the Old Blood. But then she meets Devyn, the boy with the strange midnight eyes searching for a girl with magic in her blood. A mythical guardian from an ancient Celtic kingdom with a debt to pay to a Northern lord... A boy who will make her believe in soulmates. When a mysterious virus rips through the slums leeching the life from citizens with Celtic power lying dormant in their veins, the imperial council hide behind locked doors, scheming. But the question remains: is magic the cure or the curse?

After failing to escape the Roman metropolis of Londinium with, her lover, and, her betrothed, wakes in inky darkness to find the ground giving way to sand beneath her feet. All three of them have been carted back to the notorious arena at the heart of the city to stand trial by public vote. Cass knows they must escape at any cost: to warn the Celts of the mysterious blood curse ravaging their kin, to foil the schemes of the imperial council... To find the fabled, the one who could save them all. But even as the jaws of death close in around her, another threat looms in the shadows, a danger she never could have foreseen, a betrayal that could burn down her entire world.

Stands silent upon a ravaged battlefield, watching as the druids prepare the dead for the pyres, embers drifting up into the still winter darkness. She can barely breathe through the agony of her grief, but she cannot waste another second on tears. Because Londinium, the Caesar, the empire... all of it is still out there. The empire whose code she had followed, whose prince she had promised to marry, whose schemes she had been swept up in since birth. They tried to use her magic against her. To silence her. So she will use her magic against them. To silence them. Forever.