Book excerpt: A maid who is not what she thinks she is. A boy who doesn’t want to be king. A soldier trying to save a girl from falling. Each running from what they don’t want to be, find help in the form of an old man in the mountains. But he too has secrets he isn’t willing to share, and he may not be what they hope he is. This unlikely group, connected far more than they can fathom, with the help of a farmer and his daughter, aim to restore the crown to the boy king, even if he doesn’t want it. Can they survive magic, an enormous dragon and a darkness trying to pull them into the shadows, to become what they hope to be?