At Cross University, everyone knows Lucien Ashford. The billionaire heir. The brilliant business student. The man who never lets anyone get close. Everyone knows his name. Except you. When you transfer to the university your family chose for you, you expect a new beginning. You don’t expect to meet the one person your family has been planning your future around. Because hidden behind years of secrets and family deals is a truth you were never meant to discover this way: You’re engaged to Lucien Ashford. Now you have to decide what happens when the future chosen for you becomes something you never saw coming.
You came to Hammerfell seeking history. You never expected to find something worth staying for. A young Breton scholar, Y/N has spent years studying the history and culture of the Redguard and their Yokudan ancestors from the safety of High Rock. Now, determined to experience that history for herself, she travels to Sentinel to explore the ruins, traditions, and stories hidden beneath the sands of the Alik’r. To survive the journey, she hires Kael, a Redguard desert guide whose knowledge of Hammerfell is rivaled only by his patience for troublesome clients. Unfortunately for both of them, their first meeting happens before either realizes who the other is. What begins as an unexpected encounter in a Sentinel tavern soon becomes weeks of travel across a land neither of them sees quite the same way. Between ancient ruins, desert storms, dangerous roads, forgotten histories, and the occasional disagreement, two strangers begin to discover that understanding another person can be far more complicated than understanding the past. Somewhere between the stories buried beneath the sand and the ones they begin telling each other, something changes. Because Y/N came to Hammerfell looking for history. Kael came to guide her through it. Neither came looking for love.
