The Wraith Queen

The Queen of Winter wears not the crown of royalty on her head, but the antlers of a goddess long dead.

In the second book of the Ringlands trilogy, Aveline, a half-Winter, half-Summer woman, finds herself at a crossroads she never expected: when she keeps her Summer wings hidden away, she is the spitting image of the goddess that the Winter people not only revere, but have been expecting to one day return to them in glorious resurrection. More than that, the frost she spits like dragon flame cures the Winter people, melted in the High Summer and degrading every year.

Learning this, it seemed like Aveline had a clear choice: marry the King of Winter and become not only Queen, but Goddess, with power and leverage over even the King himself. After all, who could deny a goddess's demands? Who could harm a goddess and not have the wrath of the people, of the very cosmos, on their head? No one could-so long as they never call her bluff.

But with the other Ringland countries desperate for the seasons to move again, with domestic enemies and allies of the Winter King questioning the validity of his choice in Queen, and with some dark, strange force lurking in the shadow of Aveline's newfound "godhood," it seems that her "clear" choice brings far more than she bargained for.