In the Kingdom of Durundal; hearts can be broken, loved ones lost, thrones burned - but one thing is certain - there will be blood.

Lyall has lived and breathed nightmares since he was fourteen-years-old. He believed he knew every horror and was beyond surprise. He was wrong. 

When General Domitrius Corbulo launches a brutal attack on Castle Dru in Durundal, he slaughters everyone inside. Everyone that is—except a fourteen-year-old prince. Though two years after surviving the attack and finding salvation in a clan, Lyall is one of many captives taken to Ataxata to fight in the Killing Games. However, the man who is training Lyall to fight and kill his comrades, is the same man who butchered and killed his parents. 

'Had he not sworn an oath? For his father. For his mother. For himself.'

Facing certain death, there is only one person who can help them all escape. An unlikely source, but the only one with a grain of opportunity. Because if this brave young woman cannot find a way, then all the captives will certainly perish, and the kingdoms will turn into a war of annihilation.

'Will the usurped become the usurper?'

For Lyall is determined that nothing—neither the emperor nor the general who combine against him—will keep him from his birthright.

 

Excerpt:
The weather seemed to change within minutes of them standing there. A rough wind brought clouds the colour of granite with sheets of driving rain, while the pallor of the November sky closed in upon the mountains cloaking them in mist and obscuring the moon. And for all the tightly secure windows, there must have been a small crack in one of the panes, because every now and again little tears of rain ran down the inside and collected in pools on the edge of the sill. Somewhere in the distance a wolf howled, Atemisia shivered, the king moistened his dry mouth. The lone wolf was mourning, and it hung like a shroud over the weeping castle.