In the Known Land, night does not merely fall, it devours.

The Nightward Kingdom stands between the Sunward crown and the Land of the Night, where monsters that feed on human flesh wait beyond the mountains. Peace holds by treaty and Commander Meino Terren, son of the southern king, serves as Royal Host Commander in the North, bound by oath to the very throne that keeps him from home.

When a succession crisis fractures the Nightward court and a hidden guild of assassins begins to move, Meino is ordered to investigate. What he uncovers threatens more than a throne. It threatens the fragile balance keeping the monsters at bay.

Princess Helmi is meant to be the North’s future, dutiful, visible, controlled. But she walks a second path no one suspects. As alliances shift and southern fleets gather on the horizon, her secrets grow dangerous enough to ignite a war.

Between kingdoms that distrust him, a father who may become his enemy, and a love that was never meant to survive, Meino must loyalty, blood, or the woman who could destroy them all.

Because if the North falls, the Land of the Night will not remain patient.