Fifty competitors, three trials, and one woman desperate enough to risk it all.

Let the games begin.

Killing her betrothed and fleeing an arranged marriage was meant to free Briar, the Princess of the Sea, from a life trapped on land and chained to a throne. Powerful, ruthless, and wild, she once sailed the seas under her queen mother’s rule as the feared captain of The Twelfth Night.

A decade later, she’s a pickpocket and the king’s favorite courtesan in a foreign, enemy court, working as an undercover spy while having a secret affair with the queen. As punishment for her murderous revenge, she’s stuck on land—cursed, forgotten to history, and stripped of her ruthless power that once made her so formidable. One spray of the sea against her skin will kill her.

She’s trapped, hiding in plain sight, until the King announces a competition in which the winner will be granted a single wish—a wish that could undo her curse. Determined, she conceals herself as a pirate, and magically seals herself to The Gales and its trials.

Only, the pirate identity she stole is being hunted by notorious bounty hunter and fellow trials competitor, Kressa—the same bounty hunter Briar is supposed to seduce and spy on as a courtesan.

The same woman whose kiss ignited Briar’s dormant magic, breaking all the rules of her curse.