When the King's taxmen execute the only father he's ever known, Jamie Campbell watches his life collapse in a single afternoon. Branded expendable by the Crown, he flees Taylor's End with a blade, a wound that won't stop bleeding, and nothing left to lose.
Beyond the reach of law, he crosses paths with The Black Rider-a disgraced knight turned mercenary whose name alone keeps villages awake at night. He should leave Jamie to die. Instead, he offers something more dangerous than mercy: direction.
Together, they devise a plan as reckless as it is precise: infiltrate the royal court as part of a traveling theatre troupe, enter the castle under false names, and stage a performance designed to end a dynasty.
But the closer Jamie gets to the throne, the more he uncovers-about the monarchy, the man who forged him, and the blood running quietly through his own veins.
And beneath the castle, something older than crowns and bloodlines begins to wake.