The Siege of Broken Names
For three weeks no rain has touched Thornwall, but the Quarter still reeks of wet rot, and Captain Ilyra Vance knows the smell is only the beginning. Crouched behind a dry rain barrel with six Watchmen pressed into the shadows, she watches the amber smear of an enemy lantern swing through the shutters of a cutler's shop that has not sold a blade in living memory. Thornwall is a city eating itself alive, and the siege she has dreaded for years is finally at its gates. When Lord Merek Vale marshals the banners and Prince Dorian begins his quiet ascent toward Queen Lysandra's crumbling throne, the city's last defenders find themselves caught between rival factions with no intention of sharing the spoils. Ilyra is ordered to hold the walls, but her loyalties are torn between the Watch, a kingdom she no longer recognizes, and a conspiracy led by Kaelen Duskwood and Lady Sevryn that promises salvation at a price she cannot yet calculate. Even Saen and Maeven, the closest things she has to allies, are hiding truths that could shatter her before the first ram strikes the gate. The siege will break Thornwall or forge it anew. Every name, every house, every oath, every soul, will be measured against what survives the storm. Ilyra Vance has spent her career counting other men's breaths. Now she must decide whose name will be carved on the city's last standing wall, and whose will be erased before the dawn.