Years have passed since the Jarnish invasion, and Sulien ap Gwien has worked tirelessly alongside her lord, King Urdo, to restore the King's Peace to Tir Tanagiri. But the man Sulien believes to be the greatest of his time is seen by others as a potential tyrant. Urdo's vision of a nation of citizens bound by a single code of law is viewed with increasing mistrust, and this soon gives way to civil war.

Sulien must take up arms again. But where once her enemies were barbarian invaders, now they are former comrades and loved ones. As the conflict tears her country and her family apart, Sulien must fight harder and harder to hold onto Urdo's vision of the future.

Praise for the Trilogy

'Walton writes with an authenticity that never loses heart, a rare combination . . . She can dig down to a true vein of legend and hammer out gold.' Robin Hobb

'The people, the politics, the details of warfare and daily life, all ring as true as the steel sword the heroine wields so doughtily. This is much more than a retooling of the Matter of Britain: it is a fully imagined, living, magical world.' Delia Sherman

'Beautiful and thought-provoking. Walton tells a story set in a world and a history almost like ours, but different enough to be in itself a kind of elvenland.' Poul Anderson

'Head and shoulders and sword-arm above most fantasy. Like a lost memoir from the Dark Age of a subtly different history, tough and unsentimental and all the more touching for that.' Ken MacLeod