After six months of exile, Red Knight Diane of the Graystoke Inquisitors rides back to Lyre-a village she once defended with sword and soul. But homecoming offers no peace. Time apart has turned the closeness between the inquisitors brittle, the town guard is desperate for direction, and the people wear suspicion like armor.
When one of Diane's former lovers is found dead mere hours after their reunion, the whispers begin. What should have been a fresh start becomes a tangle of debts, twisted scripture, and stifled grief. Diane is no longer the village's shield; she is its question mark, its blade turned inward.
As mourning swells and the truth decays behind church doors and closed hearts, Diane must uncover truths no one dares speak. Justice does not wear white in Lyre. It comes veiled, bearing flowers for the dead.
To serve it, Diane must reckon with what she's lost, what she still fights for-and the love she was never meant to keep.
Autorentext
Valerie was born and raised in Oklahoma, USA. In her youth, epic fantasy worlds such as the Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms worlds gave her an appetite for the darker side of fantasy where the heroes aren't always clean, and the villains aren't always the bad guys. Now she writes her own stories of how even tarnished heroes can try to bring some light into a very dark and dangerous world.