Follow Lois McMaster Bujold, one of the most honored authors in the field of fantasy and science fiction, to a land threatened by treacherous war and beset by demons.

Three years have passed since the widowed Dowager Royina Ista found release from the curse of madness that kept her imprisoned in her family's castle at Valenda. Yet her newfound freedom is bittersweet, and so the road, and escape, beckons.

As Ista and her little party