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The Tyranny of Faith
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By Richard Swan
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Action, intrigue, and magic collide in the second book in an epic fantasy trilogy, where Sir Konrad Vonvalt’s role as an Emperor’s Justice requires him to be a detective, judge, and executioner all in one—but these are dangerous times to be a Justice . . .
A Justice’s work is never done.The Battle of Galen’s Vale is over, but the war for the Empire’s future has just begun. Concerned by rumors that the Magistratum’s authority is waning, Sir Konrad Vonvalt returns to Sova to find the capital city gripped by intrigue and whispers of rebellion. In the Senate, patricians speak openly against the Emperor, while fanatics preach holy vengeance on the streets.
Yet facing down these threats to the throne will have to wait, for the Emperor’s grandson has been kidnapped – and Vonvalt is charged with rescuing the missing prince. His quest will lead him – and his allies Helena, Bressinger and Sir Radomir – to the southern frontier, where they will once again face the puritanical fury of Bartholomew Claver and his templar knights – and a dark power far more terrifying than they could have imagined.
"Richard Swan's sophisticated take on the fantasy genre will leave readers hungry for more." – Sebastien de Castell on The Justice of Kings
“A fantastic debut.” – Peter McLean on The Justice of Kings
Also by Richard Swan:
The Empire of the Wolf
The Justice of Kings
The Tyranny of Faith
Excerpt
I
On the Road to Sova
“No event simply occurs. Each is the culmination of countless factors that trace their long roots back to the beginning of time. It is easy to bemoan an era of great upheaval as a sudden commingling of misfortunes – but the discerning eye of history tells us that there are few coincidences where the schemes of man are concerned.”
JUSTICE (AS HE THEN WAS) EMMANUEL KANE, THE LEGAL ARMOURY: ENTANGLEMENT, NECROMANCY, AND DIVINATION
“Do you think he’s dying?”
“Sir Konrad?”
“Aye.”
“The way he carries on you’d think so.”
It was a warm, drizzly spring morning in the Southmark of Guelich, and Sir Radomir, Bressinger and I were standing fifty yards from a tumbledown herbalist’s cottage. Vonvalt had been inside for most of an hour, and the three of us were trading bored, tired jibes, trying to get a rise from one another.
“There is certainly something the matter with him,” I said.
Both men turned to me.
“You said yourself the man is easily het up on matters of health,” Sir Radomir said.
“Nema, keep your voice down,” I muttered. Bressinger looked at me chidingly. He had always had a reproachful streak, but since the loss of his arm his humour had worsened. Now his hackles were quick to rise, especially when he felt Vonvalt’s character was being called into question. Once these non-verbal reprimands would have plagued me with guilt. Now I was beginning to give the chastisements short shrift.
“I don’t think anyone can sensibly argue he is not,” I said, glancing at Bressinger. “But this is different. I have not seen him like this in a long time.”
“Aye,” Bressinger murmured eventually, in what was a rare concession. “This is not his usual fussiness.”
I turned back to the cottage. It was a ramshackle place, a daub and timber construction sagging under the weight of its thatch. The place was mostly concealed behind a riot of wildflowers and other plants, and a strong herbal scent, intensified by the drizzly wetness, suffused the air and had led to no end of both human and equine sneezing.
We had been on the road from Ossica for most of the month of Sorpen, and were now but a few days’ ride from the outskirts of Sova itself. Guelich was one of the three principalities that surrounded Sova like the white around a yolk, and was ruled by the Emperor’s third son, Prince Gordan Kzosic. His castle, the fortress at Badenburg, was just visible on the distant horizon, a towering fastness of grey stone that caught the sun – and the eye – from thirty miles away.
Our journey was not supposed to have taken this long. Had Bressinger not lost an arm in Galen’s Vale, we would have left our horses and equipment in that city and then taken the Imperial Relay for a hundred and fifty miles south as far as the Westmark of Guelich. From there we could have simply taken the Baden road due east to Sova itself, for a total journey time of perhaps a week with good weather, or ten days in bad.
In fact, had Vonvalt not insisted on tracking down and then murdering Obenpatria Fischer, we could have simply hired a ship to take us down the Gale, since the river was a tributary of the Sauber which flowed directly to Sova (and which itself was in part a tributary of the Kova). But this is as much a digression as the route itself.
In any event, Vonvalt’s illness had scuppered any plans to make haste. It had come on suddenly one night. He had complained of light-headedness, which we had all attributed to the wine, but it had persisted the following day. Vonvalt, learned as he was in ailments, blamed vertigo – until he began to suffer, too, from a deep-seated sense of dread, which he could not place. The emergence of this second symptom had confused all of us, since fearfulness was not amongst his faults. But the nebulous dread continued, and then, not long after, tiredness, which itself turned into bouts of crippling fatigue.
The Empire was lousy with self-proclaimed medical men, and Vonvalt could pick out a quack – and prosecute them, since displaying the blue star without proper training was a crime – in seconds. But this particular herbalist had a good reputation, and so after our infuriatingly slow journey south, we had diverted another few tens of miles so that our lord and master could be plied with medicines.
“What he needs is a good fuck,” Sir Radomir proclaimed with great sincerity after a period of silence. He took a long draw from his flask, which I knew to contain watered-down wine.
I said nothing. I liked Sir Radomir, but I didn’t really want to engage with such vulgarities.
We continued to wait. There was no way to tell the time beyond our innate sense of its passage; even the sun was obscured by banks of raincloud, each one intent on testing the limits of our waxed cloaks. And then, eventually, Vonvalt reappeared, carrying a parcel no doubt filled with powders and potions. He looked pale and drawn, and his bearing reminded me of the way he looked and acted after a séance.
“The herbalist has found you a cure?” Sir Radomir asked. His voice was gruff, but there was a trace of optimism in it. As with Bressinger and I, Sir Radomir took great comfort from Vonvalt’s stable and predictable temperament, and the man’s abrupt decline had unnerved him.
“We can but hope,” Vonvalt muttered. It was clear the ailment embarrassed him, particularly given that the rest of us rarely took ill.
He swept past us to his horse, Vincento, and stashed the parcel away in one of the saddlebags; then he mounted up.
“Come, then,” he said, sitting upright with some effort. “We’ll make Badenburg tonight with a tailwind.”
The rest of us exchanged a brief look at this absurd optimism; then we too mounted our horses. My attention was stolen by the harsh caw of a rook which had perched on the rickety fence at the boundary of the herbalist’s land.
“’Tis a portent of spring,” Sir Radomir remarked.
“’Tis not a portent if it has already come to pass,” Bressinger said with scorn. He nodded towards the bird. “A single rook is death.”
I scoffed. “I didn’t think you were superstitious, Dubine,” I said. I tried to inject some levity into my voice, for we had become a miserable little band, crushed under the weight of our mission and the doom and gloom it represented.
Bressinger simply smiled thinly, and then kicked Gaerwyn to a trot.
“Nema,” Sir Radomir murmured to me as his own horse trotted past. “He needs a good fuck and all.”
We did not reach Badenburg until almost noon the following day, thanks in large part to the Duke of Brondsey, our donkey, and the cart full of legal accoutrements and our own personal effects that he pulled. With the benefit of hindsight, it is a burden we should and could have done away with, but I think Vonvalt thought that, like Bressinger a month before, he might have needed use of it as a litter – or worse, a bier. Besides, Vonvalt had long before arranged for a liveried company of messengers to dispatch the ill tidings from Galen’s Vale – and we were hardly the sole source of the news.
The countryside here in the tip of the Southmark of Guelich was a hilly, rocky, forested place, the earth not quite as fractured as the Tolsburg Marches, but nonetheless full of feature. Guelich had long had a reputation as a province of exceptional beauty, filled with fragrant pine forests, clear rivers, and abundant wildlife to which lords from all over the Empire made pilgrimage for an unparalleled hunting experience. The castle of Badenburg reared up into the sky out of all of this beauty like a carbuncle, a jagged, blocky, functional fortress of grey stone. Cast in the unimaginative pre-Imperial style, it lacked all modern gothick ostentation – though what it lacked in beauty it made up for in impregnability, designed and located as it had been to keep the Hauner armies from penetrating into the Grozodan peninsula. Given Haunersheim’s subjugation a half-century before, and the subsequent vassalisation of both Venland and Grozoda, the castle had become all but obsolete as a base for military operations, and now existed mostly as a dwelling for the Emperor’s third son.
By the flags above the keep, however, it was clear that Prince Gordan was not in residence; and by the churned mud of the fields outside the front gates, the wild pigs and foxes rootling for bones in the muck and the unmistakable stench of a mass latrine, it was also clear that a great host had marshalled there until very recently.
“He has gone east, Milord Justice,” the duty serjeant said. “Not a day ago. Left with the 16th Legion.”
“The 16th Legion?” Vonvalt asked. “Nema. Where were they garrisoned?”
“As far as I know, sire, they came from Kolsburg.”
“How many men?”
“Thick end of five thousand, sire. I believe the Prince is to take on siege specialists from Aulen and then make sail up the River Kova.”
“Siege specialists?”
“Aye, sire. They are making for Roundstone, in Haunersheim, and then on to Seaguard. The Emperor has had word that some of the lords in the north have turned traitor. Baron Naumov is one. I believe Margrave Westenholtz is another.”
Vonvalt grimaced at this. “Aye,” he said. He tapped himself in the chest. “It was me who sent the news. We have come from Galen’s Vale directly.”
“I heard the Vale was sacked,” the serjeant said. “’Tis true, then? The Prince could scarce believe it.”
“Indeed,” Vonvalt said absently. He looked up about the battlements. “I need to leave some things here. My donkey and cart, for one.”
The serjeant nodded. “Whatever you need, sire.”
“And you say the Prince is heading east?”
“Aye, sire. Are you heading to Sova?”
“Mm.”
“I daresay you’ll overtake him in a day or two. They are keeping to the Baden road.”
Vonvalt nodded. “Thank you, Serjeant,” he said, and we moved off.
Despite Vonvalt’s illness, we now rode hard down the Baden road. The evidence of the 16th Legion’s progress was everywhere: farms stripped bare; food waste picked over by scavengers; human, horse, and donkey shit in vast quantities; and of course the sides of the road trampled to stinking, cake-soft mud. Given we were but four people, mounted and riding on a paved road, I expected to reach the tail end of the army within a couple of hours, let alone the day that the duty serjeant had guessed. Five thousand men – around four thousand of them on foot, if the 16th Legion were a typical one – would normally be a cumbersome host, after all, lucky to make ten or fifteen miles a day in rainy conditions.
I was wrong. Vonvalt had often talked about the capabilities of the Imperial Legions, and I had often privately dismissed what I considered to be the more outlandish claims. After all, they might have had a reputation as an élite force, but they were still human beings, with all the fallibilities that came with it.
But we rode for the balance of the day, made camp, struck camp before dawn, and rode on again for another half-day before we caught up with the rearmost section of the baggage train. By that time the countryside had opened up considerably, and we were on the final approach to Sova itself.
Another half-hour’s riding saw us to the head of the host, clearly identifiable by the knot of flag bearers, musicians, and Imperial Guard – and, of course, Prince Gordan himself. We had to come off the road and urge our exhausted horses through the mud to get past the long tailback of dismounted knights and soldiers. I marvelled at how uniformly well equipped they were, with mail, surcoats in the bold red, yellow, and blue Autun colours, and kettle helms for the majority. The knights, a fraction of the total force, all owned plate of varying expense, but did not wear it on the march since they did not want to die of exhaustion or otherwise overburden their horses.
Prince Gordan himself had the classic red hair and beard of the Haugenate line, the former of which was covered over by a flat-topped helmet and crown, the latter close-cropped. He wore a mail hauberk with an expensive-looking surcoat quartered in the colours of the Empire and resplendent with a black Autun rampant. He had a pleasant, handsome face and appeared to be in a good humour as we approached, laughing at a comment or joke from one of his retainers.
“Your Highness,” Vonvalt called out. He drew the attention of Prince Gordan, as well as every man in the immediate vicinity.
The Prince squinted at Vonvalt for a few moments whilst Sir Radomir, Bressinger and I made sudden and energetic obeisance; then his face broke into a grin. “That’s not… Konrad, is it? By Nema!”
“The very same, Highness,” Vonvalt said, touching his forehead out of respect rather than requirement – as a Justice, after all, Vonvalt outranked even the Emperor’s third son. Even after years of travelling with Vonvalt, and becoming fully acquainted with every aspect of his practice, it was still easy to forget just how much power he enjoyed.
“Faith, man, it’s been, what, three, four years? When were you last in Sova?”
“About that,” Vonvalt said, nodding in the direction of the capital. “But I make for it now.”
“And not a day too soon,” Prince Gordan replied. His tone was serious, but his face retained its levity. It is easy to forget, having long since met and rubbed shoulders with the highest-ranking nobles in the Empire, that initial sense of awe and fear; but at the time I was near breathless with it. Riding but ten yards from me, after all, surrounded by all the extravagant trappings of state and tailed by an Imperial Legion, was one of the three princes of the Empire.
“You make for Roundstone?”
“Aye,” Prince Gordan said pleasantly. “Baron Naumov has apparently the will to suicide and has chosen a curiously long and expensive way to commit it.” The lords and retainers around him laughed with varying levels of sincerity.
“And then on to Seaguard?”
“Aye, you are well informed.”
“It was me, Highness, who uncovered the treachery,” Vonvalt said, “and sent word to His Majesty.”
“Ah!” Prince Gordan said. “My father did not mention you by name, only that a Justice had tipped him off to the rebellion being fomented in the Hauner lands. You are in his favour, Sir Konrad; you would do well to capitalise on it, for ’tis a fleeting thing!”
More bombastic laughter. I wondered if being the retainer of a prince was exhausting.
“I plan to pay your father a visit soon.”
“Good man,” Prince Gordan said. “Though I wonder if you would not prefer to accompany me? Your reputation as an accomplished swordsman precedes you – and I always have space for wise counsel.”
Vonvalt bowed deferentially. “Would that I could, Highness. Alas it would appear the Order is in some turmoil – and I myself am no spring chicken.”
Prince Gordan gave him an appraising look. “Aye,” he said. “You do look a little green around the gills. Have you eaten something bad?”
“I know not what ails me, Highness – only that it is not contagious.”
He added the last part to assuage the Prince and his men, for armies were far more susceptible to a rampant pox than they were to any enemy action.
“Well, see that you avail yourself of the Royal Physician, sir, though I daresay she will do little more than have half your blood out and give you a good gulp of piss to boot.”
Vonvalt bowed again. “I am grateful, Highness. May I ask, is that the sum of your plans? Has there been any news of further rebellion? Westenholtz is hanged, but Naumov may have drawn others to his banner.”
Prince Gordan shrugged. I could tell in that moment that he was a simple man, capable of commanding a Legion in battle, but someone who did not trouble himself to ask too many questions or seek to understand wider events. I imagined him as one who enjoyed hunting and carousing with a close circle of friends more than the daily burdens of government.
“I sometimes forget that you Justices are lawmen in your bones, with your questions! I know not the intricacies of the traitors’ movements or plans, sir, only to kill them and confiscate their lands.” He waved a hand dismissively, and for the first time in this encounter I saw the stirrings of discontent amongst the Prince’s retainers – an exchanged glance, a raised eyebrow. “You would do better to speak to my father; I have not his shrewdness I am afraid.”
“I am sure that is not the case,” Vonvalt said.
Prince Gordan chuckled. “Well, do not let me detain you further, Justice,” he said. “Give my regards to my father, would you? I imagine it will be a year before I am back in the capital, perhaps longer.”
“I will, Highness,” Vonvalt said, touching his forehead once more. The Prince tapped the rim of his helmet in reply, and then we were back on the Baden road and charging ahead to put some distance between us and the inexorable advance of the 16th Legion.
“Well, that takes the sting out of it,” Vonvalt said as we slowed to spare the horses.
“What do you mean?” Sir Radomir asked.
Vonvalt gestured back down the road. “A Legion to crush whatever remains of Naumov and Westenholtz’s rebellion and restore order in the Northmark of Haunersheim.” Already I could see the effect this piece of good news was having on Vonvalt. He looked calmer and more relaxed – and healthier for it. I wondered then whether his ailment was simply the result of the incredible stresses on him.
“I am surprised it can be spared,” Bressinger muttered.
Vonvalt shook his head, patting the side of Vincento’s neck. “Haunersheim is the spine of the Empire. Were it another province I would agree with you.” He took in a deep, invigorating breath. “There is still plenty to be done, but at least we can stop worrying about this. It is precisely the sort of decisive intervention I had hoped for.”
Vonvalt’s sudden optimism was infectious. I remember looking back at the five-thousand-strong host of Reichskrieg veterans, with their expensive arms and armour and led by one of the Emperor’s own sons, and allowing myself to feel some of that good cheer, too. After all, the Emperor was known to have around fifty Legions of Imperial troops in varying states of readiness across the Empire. What damage could Claver, the Mlyanars, the Templars, or anyone really do against such a weight of numbers?
In fact, it was the last we – and most others – would ever see of both Prince Gordan and the 16th Legion. In a few short months they would disappear into the forests of Haunersheim, and thereafter from the face of the earth.
But I must not get ahead of myself.
II
Master of the Magistratum
“Sova is a marvel to behold, a city without parallel in the known world.”
LORD PREFECT ANSGAR REINHOLD
Sova.
I could spend several volumes simply on its description and it would still not be enough. I have seen tapestries, mosaics and frescoes from celebrated artists, heard a hundred – no, a thousand – stories and songs of Sova, and read volume after volume on its history, its architecture, its culture…
But nothing compares to seeing it. To feeling the hot cobblestones under your feet on a summer’s afternoon; of being in and amongst the people of all different races and creeds, going about their lives without interruption or abuse, united by their common Sovan citizenship; of hearing the thunderous roar of the crowd in the arena; of craning to see the tips of the spires of the huge temples and palaces which seem to clamour for light like trees in a forest.
Thinking back to that first approach on the Baden road, as the vast pine forests of Guelich gave way to the grassy Ebenen Plains, I can remember feeling a sense of sudden, overwhelming awe. Even from ten miles away, perched as we were on an escarpment, the sense of scale of the city was breathtaking. How could anyone pose a threat to such a powerful place? In Galen’s Vale, Westenholtz and his force of five hundred men had seemed unstoppable, a large and terrifying company of soldiers against which the city was helpless. To storm Sova, one would need an army a thousand times larger.
“There it is,” Vonvalt said. He had been to Sova many times – indeed, he had a house there, on the Summit of the Prefects – but I could tell that even he could not keep his wonder in check.
The rolling, golden-green Ebenen Plains stretched away from us, a vast plateau of grassland broken up by the huge, sun-silvered River Sauber, half a dozen major roads, farmland, and a sprawling mass of buildings which had grown around the walls of the city like a vast, smoking lesion. There was activity everywhere in spite of the dark curtains of rain which swept intermittently across the plains: dozens of trading ships on the wharf-lined Sauber, farmhands in the fields, people on the roads… I baulked at the thought of how much food the city must import every day.
The city itself rose up like a beehive, with the yolk of it home to the largest buildings in the known world. The towering spires of the temples and palaces in the city’s distant centre seemed… impossibly huge. The tallest structure in the Empire was the Tower of Saint Velurian, part of the Temple of Savare, the God Father, and I could see it rising up to the western edge of the centre – a thousand feet tall. A mile to the east was the Imperial Palace, a pyramidal fortress of black marble, festooned with turrets and statuary. Its tallest peak achieved three-quarters of the height of the Tower of Saint Velurian. They were but two of the colossi there; the rest were arrayed about like mighty funeral monuments to princes of the universe.
“Nema’s blood,” Sir Radomir said. Like me, he had never set eyes on Sova. “I never thought I would see it in my lifetime.” He took a drink of wine. “I didn’t know human hands could construct such marvels.”
“They can’t, now,” Vonvalt said, somewhat cryptically. I could vaguely recall Vonvalt having spoken about some sort of ancient magickal infusions which anchored these vast constructions to the bedrock, back when the practice of magicks had been more common – but we had never spoken about it in any detail. “The book-lore remains, of course, somewhere in the Law Library. But the knowledge and means to wield it has long faded from memory.”
We sat atop our horses and drank in the view for a few moments longer, before eventually, Vonvalt said, “Come; let us be about it. Rough deeds await.”
Sova was surrounded by twenty miles of wall fifty feet high at its lowest, and there were only four ways to get in – a gate at each of the compass points. The Baden road entered Sova from the north, through the largest and most impressive fortification: the Wolf Gate.
“By Nema,” I murmured as we passed beneath it. Here the flanking wall was even higher, sixty or seventy feet, formed into a forbidding gatehouse which in and of itself would have put most provincial castles to shame. But the most impressive aspect was a colossus of the Autun rendered in black stone, its paws gripping the top of the wall, one head looking north, the other to the east. I felt as though it were looking directly at me, and could not suppress a shiver of awe.
It was evening by the time we were urging our horses through the Wolf Gate, the way lit by the honey-coloured light of the fading sun and a dozen bonfire-sized braziers. Armoured guards in Imperial colours and wielding pikes watched from atop the wall, ambling amongst dozens of carriage-sized ballistae. Around us and ahead of us, hundreds of people of all colours and creeds and wearing all manner of outfits bustled – commonfolk, highborn, merchant princes and their retinues, senators in their formal white robes, Southern Plainsmen in their unfamiliar outfits and hairstylings, Neman monks and nuns, Templars, liveried soldiers, and every other type of person one could call to mind. Some were mounted like us; most were not. I had seen a handful of non-native Hauners in the wharf of Galen’s Vale, but here they were as common as Sovans. There was every shade of skin, every colour of hair, every form of dress – and all of them moved about like bees in a hive, the sense of purpose, of sheer… activity, overwhelming. I felt like a piece of debris adrift in the centre of a vast ocean, swirled by the human currents.
“I… I have never seen so many people in one place,” I said, a faltering attempt at conversation. None of my companions could hear me. The noise was incredible. Conversation filled the air, alongside the clop of horses’ hooves, the rattle and squeal of wagon wheels, the tramp of armoured boots, the shouts and cries of a thousand people.
Genre:
- "Reminiscent of Andrzej Sapkowski ... [a] complex and dark historical fantasy series inspired by medieval state-military-church political conflicts."—Kirkus (Starred Review) on The Tyranny of Faith
- “With Swan’s impeccable worldbuilding, wit and claw-off-the-page characters, Tyranny of Faith seamlessly blends fantasy, mystery and horror into an addictive read, rife with unparalleled tension. A thoroughly satisfying sequel.”—H. M. Long, author of Hall of Smoke, on The Tyranny of Faith
- "A fantasy series that fans of authors like Joe Abercrombie, George R.R. Martin, or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle should have on their shelf ... The Tyranny of Faith is a compelling follow-up to Richard Swan’s The Justice of Kings, full of the intrigue, foreboding, detailed worldbuilding and deep character explorations that made the first book so good. I had high expectations going into this book and it surpassed them. A five star read, hands down.”—Winter Is Coming on The Tyranny of Faith
- "[Swan] has set the story up for a thrilling, heart-rending, dark, and tension-filled finale and I cannot wait to read it. Highest recommendation."—SFFWorld on The Tyranny of Faith
- “The Justice of Kings is equal parts heroic fantasy and murder mystery. Sir Konrad Vonvalt’s fierce intellect and arcane powers will make you long to follow in his footsteps, but it’s his young clerk, Helena who brings heart and dazzle to the story. Together they’re a formidable team, and Richard Swan’s sophisticated take on the fantasy genre will leave readers hungry for more.”—Sebastien de Castell, author of Spellslinger, on The Justice of Kings
- "A stunning piece of modern fantasy writing."—RJ Barker, author of The Bone Ships, on The Justice of Kings
- "The Justice of Kings is utterly compelling, thoroughly engrossing, and written with such skillful assurance I could barely put it down. The characters feel so real I swear I suffered every horror and hangover alongside them, and their world—though we see just the smallest portion of it here—feels vastly complex, poised on the brink of a disaster I can’t wait to watch unfold.”—Nicholas Eames, author of Kings of the Wyld, on The Justice of Kings
- “A fascinating look at justice, vengeance and the law — great characters, compelling and wonderfully written. A brilliant debut and fantastic start to the series.”—James Islington, author of The Shadow of What Was Lost, on The Justice of Kings
- "A marvelously detailed world with an engrossing adventure from a unique perspective."—K. S. Villoso, author of The Wolf of Oren-Yaro, on The Justice of Kings
- "A fantastic debut."—Peter McLean, author of Priest of Bones, on The Justice of Kings
- "Swan crafts a strong, dynamic character in Vonvalt . . . This promises good things from the series to come."—Publishers Weekly on The Justice of Kings
- “Murder mystery meets grimdark political fantasy in this first of a trilogy … An intriguingly dark deconstruction of a beloved mystery trope.”—Kirkus (starred review) on The Justice of Kings
- “The world of the Empire of the Wolf is a rich and interesting one … Readers will enjoy the world building, Sir Konrad and his crew, and the unique touches to a familiar fantasy tale.”—Booklist on The Justice of Kings
- On Sale
- Aug 8, 2023
- Page Count
- 592 pages
- Publisher
- Orbit
- ISBN-13
- 9780316361781
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