Heiress of the Seven Cities to a Court Nothing

In malicious courts, soft-hearted girls end up with poisoned hearts. She walks with a scream in her soul and a smile on her face, her dreams rotting in her pocket like undrunk nectar. If young noblewoman Trista ever revealed her wish for a meaningful life, one profound and free, the lords and ladies of her gilded court would crush her beneath their slippered toes. But when her father arranges a foul betrothal for her in another city, she craves at least one taste of freedom before she is boxed up into nothingness. For one night, she escapes to the honeyed radiance of the carnival, where she sneaks behind one of the rides and finds... An open door. In a small room, on time-eroded planks, kneels a boy scarcely older than she, and as the wind brushes sand across her slippers, the boy glances up. Unlike anyone she's ever known, he is beautiful and mute, and he speaks only with his heart. With him, she seizes secret joys. But her spiteful father would rather snap her neck than set her free. * In a viperous court, can a single sweet bird fly her cage? Especially with the cryptic heir to the kingdom always one step behind her, inscrutable with his own unspoken intent. Step in and discover her fate.