Ash and Oathsteel

Amos Vell has spent his life carrying other people's dead across country roads that no magistrate will patrol. Now, with a storm gathering over Brackenscar Ravine and a broken bridge swinging above black water, he is carrying something far worse than a body. Strapped to his lead mule is a lacquered soul-coffin, and sealed inside the pack is a bar of oathsteel , the same cursed alloy that bound his grandfather to a lord who should have died three generations ago. The debt has come due, and the men coming to collect it do not plan to let Amos reach the highland passes. Halla Dreo, the scarred guide who knows the ravine's drowned roads, wants only her family's name cleared. Vael Korrin, a disgraced oath-knight hiding beneath a trader's cloak, is hunting the very men Amos is sworn to serve. Maris Olent watches everyone and trusts no one, Fen Hask cannot remember which oaths are his, and Lirel Voss keeps asking questions about a name , Edrik Vael , that no one in the caravan will explain. As lightning splits the ravine and the bridge groans under its last weight, Amos learns that the storm was not sent to bar his way, but to choose which of them deserves to cross. The oathsteel will answer only once, and the man who pays the toll may not be the man who started the journey.