When a man goes out seeking blood, he will find it. Always he will find it. It was a truth Cutter had learned long ago, for he had been that man. For countless years, on countless battlefields, he had sought violence and blood...and the gods help him, he had found it. Found more than his share. But there was another truth, one he was only now beginning to understand. The truth that, once a man wed himself to violence, to war, he could not easily put it aside, for carnage was a jealous bride who, upon discovering that its groom had forgotten it, set out to make him remember. She did that reminding not with soft words but with battle cries and the screams of the wounded. And death, of course. That most of all. And so Cutter finds himself taking shelter in the woods with the remaining survivors of a bloody massacre. Now, he and his companions journey to New Daltenia, the capital of the Known Lands and the seat of his brother's power. For only there can they prove Matt's royal blood and keep him safe. But Feledias is not the only threat they face. The Fey were defeated once, but while the kingdom of the Known Lands has nearly ripped itself apart during the feud of its royal princes, the denizens of the Black Wood have worked within the shadows. In the darkness of the Black Wood, they have plotted their revenge. They do not know it yet, but the people of the Known Lands are at war. A war taking place not on distant battlefields but in the quiet alleyways of their own cities, within the walls of their own homes. The Fey aren't coming-they're already here. So it is that in order to save the kingdom he failed so long ago, Cutter must stand against his enemies and those he once called friends. Should he fail, should he fall, then the Known Lands will fall with him. And if by some thin chance he succeeds, then perhaps he might find what he has sought for fifteen years-redemption.