Adhere to Lois McMaster Bujold, probably one of the most honored authors in neuro-scientific dream and science fiction, to a land threatened by treacherous war and beset by demons.

Three years possess passed because the widowed Dowager Royina Ista found release from your curse of madness that kept her imprisoned in her family’s castle at Valenda. However her newfound independence is bittersweet, and so the road, and get away, beckons.

As Ista and her small party of pilgrims wander at will, they are unexpectedly collection upon. But a incomprehensible ally appears, a warrior nobleman who fights just like a berserker. The temporary protection of her enigmatic champion’s castle cannot ease Ista’s mounting dread, nevertheless, when she discovers his dark secrets are entangled with hers inside a net from the gods’ very own weaving.

The actual inscrutable gods commanded of her in the past brought her land to the brink of devastation. Today, once again, they have selected Ista as their device. And again, once and for all or for sick, she must comply.