"Some feel the Lady, newly risen from centuries in thrall, stands between humankind and evil. Some feel she is evil itself. The hardbitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must, burying their doubts with their dead. Until the prophesy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more. There must be a way for the Black Company to find her.."--

A survivor of a battle with the Instrumentalities, the former Else Tage, now known as Piper Hecht, sets out to enlist the assistance of legendary sorcerer Cloven Februaren in the battle against the dynastic politics of the Empire.

"The soldiers of the Black Company don't ask questions, they get paid. But being "The Lady's favored" is attracting the wrong kind of attention and has put a target on their backs--and the Company's historian, Croaker, has the biggest target of all. The one person who was taken into The Lady's Tower and returned unchanged has earned the special interest of the court of sorcerers known as The Ten Who Were Taken. Now, he and the company are being asked...

"Darkness wars with darkness as the hard-bitten men of the Black Company take their pay and do what they must. They bury their doubts with their dead. Then comes the prophecy: The White Rose has been reborn, somewhere, to embody good once more..."--Back cover.

"Arnhand, Castauriga, and Navaya lost their kings. The Grail Empire lost its empress. The Church lost its Patriarch, though he lives on as a fugitive. The Night lost Kharoulke the Windwalker, an emperor amongst the most primal and terrible gods. The Night goes on, in dread. The world goes on, in dread. The ice builds and slides southward. New kings come. A new empress will rule. Another rump polishes the Patriarchal Throne. But there is something...

Beginning a new fantasy epic from the creator of Black company and Dread empire, rich as history and deep as the night sky. Welcome to the world of the instrumentalities of the night, where imps, demons, and dark gods rule in the spaces surrounding upstart humanity. At the edges of the world stand walls of ice, which push slowly forward to reclaim the land for the night, and at the world's center, in the Holy Land where two great religions were born,...