In his acclaimed Codex Alera novels, #1 New York Times bestselling author Jim Butcher has generated a fascinating world of elemental magic. Right now, as enemies become allies, and close friends become bitter foes, a risk beyond reckoning looms for those…

After 2 yrs of bitter conflict using the hordes of invading Canim warriors, Tavi of Calderon, today Captain from the First Aleran Legion, realizes that a peril much larger than the Canim exists-the strange risk that drove the savage Canim to flee their homeland.

Tavi proposes attempting an alliance with the Canim against their common foe, but his warnings move unheeded. For the Senate’s newly-appointed army commander has long desired to get rid of the Canim “scourge,” and their slave allies.

Right now, Tavi must find a way to overcome centuries-old animosities if an alliance is usually to be forged, and he must lead his legion in defiance of regulations, against friend and foe-or none could have a chance of survival…