In the Kingdom of the Five Gods, Dowager Royina Ista’s fallacious pilgrimage-come-holiday, guided by an incompetent Divine of The Bastard, is happily travelling from one gastronomic “shrine” to another.
Ista thinks her little party of pilgrims wanders at will. But whose? When Ista’s retinue is unexpectedly set upon, not long into its travels, a mysterious ally appears — a warrior nobleman who fights like a berserker. The temporary safety of her enigmatic champion’s castle cannot ease Ista’s mounting dread, however, when she finds his dark secrets are entangled with hers, in a net of the gods’ own weaving.
Something else is free, too — something beyond deadly. And someone, something, watches from across the enemy border — humans, demons, gods?