The Lowlands, 1382.Guillaume Worthy is a man of soil and silence. After twenty years of blood and architecture on the battlefields of France, he has traded his mace for a plough and his title for a simple farm. He has built a sanctuary in the grey dirt; a place where his son, Jean, can shun the sword, and his niece, Beatrix, can thrive in the golden light of the harvest.It is a beautiful lie, and Guillaume has bled into the earth to make it ring true.But peace is an expensive commodity in the 14th century, and Sir Guyson Malvoir has come to collect. When Malvoir's scavengers raid the farm, they don't find silver. They find leverage. In a moment of frantic sacrifice, Beatrix is taken: a lavender honey light extinguished by a world of pitch and brine.Now, the Worthy Farmer faces an impossible geometry. Jean demands a rescue born of fire and steel, but Guillaume knows that once the Butcher of Mortain wakes, the man he spent two decades becoming will die forever.To save the only light he has left, Guillaume must out-think a monster without becoming one himself. But Malvoir hasn't just asked for a ransom. He has asked for the Butcher.And the Butcher always delivers.
