A Fate So Cold

Of the three hundred and eighty-six wands in the nation of Alderland, Valmordion is the most famous and the most feared. Tremendously powerful and unspeakably dangerous, it has only bonded with a magician when a great cataclysm looms on the horizon. Now, for the first time in over two centuries, it has awakened once more.

Domenic Barrow has witnessed the price of power firsthand and sworn never to seek it—but destiny hasn’t granted him a choice. After Domenic is forced to submit himself as a candidate to wield Valmordion, he is horrified when the great wand chooses him.

Ellery Caldwell has spent a lifetime diligently striving for a wand in order to help protect her country from its destructive magical winters. So she’s devastated when Valmordion chooses someone so undeserving, so ungrateful. Until she creates a brand new wand, a feat no magician has accomplished in known memory.

Now, as the two most powerful magicians in Alderland, Domenic and Ellery are faced with the seemingly impossible task of discovering the cataclysm and thwarting it. But amidst icy natural disasters, political unrest, and brewing romance, each of them is confronted with an unthinkable truth.

Domenic believes the cataclysm is Ellery. Ellery believes the cataclysm is Domenic. And their only option to see their destinies fulfilled and Alderland saved is for one of them to slay the other.