The sword does not fear the fire that forged it.

Usurper Prince Daven Marcus has seized his father's throne and shattered the Grand Kingdom. Refugees are flooding over the mountains and even as Prentice Ash's White Lions seem just able to hold the chaos at bay, the Western Reach is overwhelmed with a new challenge no one could have foreseen-an unending drought that bakes the land dry. Even the mighty Dwelt River is reduced to a trickle, and Duchess Amelia fights to the limits of her strength just to keep her land and people from dying of thirst.

There are whispers of a curse upon the land and, even, the duchess, while factions recently united behind their liege are muttering dissension. Rebellion threatens. Worse, a fresh enemy hounds the Reach and its people-horsemen of ghostly stealth who strike without warning. Using a new and unexpected form of warfare, they are unlike any knights or militia. Are they mere bandits or a new force of Redlanders? Or are they something altogether different?

Assassins and spies; traitors and rebels; conspirators and opportunists; ancient curses and new enemies. The Western Reach has become a nest of serpents that threatens to devour everything Prentice and Amelia have striven to build. Yet neither will yield, not even to the blazing heat of the sun itself. After all, they have both already passed through flames to forge peace for their land. They are the Duchess and her Captain-steel, hard forged and well-tempered by suffering.

They do not fear the fire.