Seventeen-year-old Nyx wakes on her birthday to find a black mark spreading across her left palm, pulsing with dark energy she can't control. In the city of Luminara where light magic reigns supreme, shadow magic is forbidden, its users hunted and executed without trial. Her best friend Solara wants to help her hide it, but the Luminary Guards are already searching for the newly marked. A rogue mage named Umbra offers refuge in the underground resistance, where shadow-marked outcasts have been gathering in secret. As Nyx learns to control her dangerous gift, she discovers the marks aren't random curses but ancient callings, and that the war between light and shadow has been built on centuries of lies that someone very powerful wants to keep buried.
