He plays the fool. He hides his power. He waits. Dean, eldest son of the Narea family, has spent years pretending to be a useless playboy while secretly mastering forbidden Nether Magic. His stepmother poisoned his mother and wants the inheritance for her own son. Then war arrives, and a magical tournament is announced to choose a royal consort. Dean enters. He wins. The princess sees him. The enemy sees him. When his stepmother betrays the kingdom and opens the border to invasion, Dean rides to war and ends a fifteen-year blood feud with his own hands. But when the dust settles—will he take the throne, or walk away with the woman who understands him?