Rose is a Princess, not of a wondrous land, but of the dark and terrifying post-apocalyptic kingdom of Evermore, ruled by a tyrant king.
Her greatest longing is to venture beyond the walls of
many-towered Evermore, but her mother, who captured the
heart of the king with the dual gifts of storytelling and beauty, was slain by a dragon outside Evermore, and it is forbidden.
Rose has been brought up by her mothers' maid Pilar, also a gifted teller of tales, and gradually she comes to understand the dark truth of the love of the tyrant king for her mother, and of Evermore itself.
 
 
But it is not until she learns the darkest truth of all that she finds the desperate courage to leave .
Pilar, the strange boy Enzo, given to her mother by the king, and her beloved Quiet, to flee Evermore ...