There's blood in the basement, blood which demands answers, and Grimhult really isn't the right troll to get them. Everyone knows this, not least of which Grimhult himself. But here he is, moved by powers like he was a piece on a board he doesn't understand, with little hope to make things better. Niels is having second thoughts. You do your job, you do it well, you keep your head down, and things will be alright, but Niels is having a harder time at it then he's ever had before. And though he cannot see the game for all its parts, he's still pushed to add new ones to it, and it nags at him that it's bound to only make things worse. Isan does her best not to have thoughts at all. It really doesn't befit a bondhuman to think. Tools don't think, they just get used, just like they're supposed to. It doesn't matter if she ends up in the middle of conspiracies and opportunistic gambles without a clue as to the rules, because she's not meant to matter. A troll, a yardling, and a bondhuman; poised at the fulcrum to make or break this impossible burgh, this mad experiment, this Patchwork Sovereignty.
Life can be hard for a human. Sometimes they’re hunted and hounded, sometimes hearths and harbours are lost to them, and sometimes past and present leave them behind. Sometimes a king with no kingdom, a rogue with scruples, a runaway with no runway, and an amnesiac with nostalgia, get caught in each others’ orbits through no fault but their own, and someday this will be their story. ‘The Girl with Raven Hair’ is a subversive epic adventure; with well-intentioned scoundrels, brooding mountain kings, and resentful prizes, in which the heroes are their own worst enemies.
