Lawrence brings the Broken Empire series to its devastating conclusion The path to the throne is broken — only the broken can walk it The world is cracked and time has run through, leaving us clutching at the end days. These are the days that have waited for us all our lives. These are my days. I will stand before the Hundred and they will listen. I will take the throne no matter who stands against me, living or dead, and if I must be the last emperor then I will make of it such an ending. This is where the wise man turns away. This is where the holy kneel and call on God. These are the last miles, my brothers. Don't look to me to save you. Run if you have the wit. Pray if you have the soul. Stand your ground if courage is yours. But don't follow me. Follow me, and I will break your heart.

The boy who would be King has gained the throne... Prince Honorious Jorg Ancrath vowed when he was nine to avenge his slaughtered mother and brother--and punish his father for not doing so. When he was fifteen, he began to fulfill that vow. Now he is eighteen — and he must hold on by strength of arms to what he took by torture and treachery. King Jorg is a man haunted: by the ghost of a young boy, by a mysterious copper box, by his desire for the woman who rides with his enemy. Plagued by nightmares of the atrocities he committed, and of the atrocities committed against him when he was a child, he is filled with rage. And even as his need for revenge continues to consume him, twenty thousand men march toward the gates of his castle. His enemy is far stronger than him. Jorg knows that he cannot win a fair fight. But he has found, in a chamber hidden beneath the castle, ancient and long-lost artifacts. Some might call them magic. Jorg is not certain — all he knows is that the secrets they hold can be put to terrible use in the coming battle...