Dr. Aris Thorne is a brilliant, rational historian, a rising star at Oxford whose life is dedicated to the hard facts of the Roman Empire. But when a series of shockingly vivid nightmares begins to plague her sleep—dreams of fire, betrayal, and a life as a Vestal Virgin named Lyra in the court of Emperor Nero—the lines between academic study and personal experience start to blur. The dreams feel too real to be fiction, filled with sensory details and historical accuracies that Aris has never studied.
Driven by a compulsion she cannot explain, Aris follows the ghostly breadcrumbs of her visions to Rome. There, she uncovers a long-forgotten secret beneath the bustling city: a sealed Vestal burial chamber that matches her dreams with impossible precision. As she delves deeper into Lyra’s tragic story of forbidden love and political conspiracy, Aris realizes she is not just uncovering history; she is reliving it. But the ancient betrayal that led to Lyra’s demise has echoes in the present, and a soul from her past has been reborn as well—a soul who will stop at nothing to ensure the truth remains buried forever.
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