Déria is the daughter of a northern lord, sent to finish her education at the court of the Emperor where her charm, just as devastating as her sword, leaves no one indifferent. But Déria prefers the company of her young maid Shani and the soldier Mahlin to that of the nobles at the court.

The news of her assassination comes as a brutal blow to her friends, who swear they will take revenge. Mahlin and Shani learn of a plot aimed at concealing the circumstances of the young woman’s death from her father. They decide to travel to the North to inform the baron in person.

They are far from imagining they are going straight to a man feared by even the Empire’s most powerful lords. A man who carved his legend in letters of blood twenty years earlier by winning the war: the Butcher.

Now bearing the title of Lord of Icevale, Rekk the Butcher has lost none of his cruelty or his might. The murder of his daughter will be avenged, and the Empire itself will quake.