The Fox (The Iron Head Trilogy, Part One)

Maer Lakrius feels content and secure in his role of a second-born child in the royal household until the battlefield of Vanas rips his reality apart. Helpless to prevent his older brother's death, Maer returns to the kingdom defeated, and must face not only the weight of his loss, but the burden of becoming Emberya's Crown Prince. A burden, made even worse by the changes in the world Maer believes only he can see. Unknowingly, the young prince's fate becomes entwined with that of a woman—an 18-year-old mercenary with a past she would rather forget, and struggles eerily similar to Maer's own.