When the horns finally sound across the blood-soaked Black Valleys, Prince Arthur Deialger returns home as a decorated commander, only to find an empire rotting from within. The Deialger throne, once sacred and feared, has been reshaped by the Trident, a powerful council, and compromised by a Church that now wears the crown''''s colors like a warning. A political marriage with the enemy is announced, secrets are buried in law and ritual, and the royal household begins to collapse under betrayal, succession plots, and a curse no healer can name.