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Laela Redguard was born with the black hair of the Northern kingdom and the blue eyes of the Southern people, forever marking her as a hated half-breed child of both. When her only family tie is severed, the fierce and strong-willed Laela decides to leave her adoptive father's home in the hopes of finding acceptance in the North, where the ruthless King Arenadd and the dark griffin Skandar rule.

While Laela's Northern features allow her to blend into the crowds of the King's seat at Malvern, she cannot avoid falling victim to a pair of common thugs. When a stranger saves her life and gives her a place to stay, Laela is shocked to learn he is Arenadd himself--a man said to be a murderer who sold his soul to the Night God--the King without a heart.

Arenadd is unsure what compels him to help this girl, but there is something about her that seems familiar, something he cannot remember--something that may rise up to banish the darkness forever...

Arenadd Taranisäii, infamous leader of the Northern people, has vanished. Only his half-breed daughter Laela knows what happened to him. Left to rule her father's Kingdom, Laela is all that stands in the way of the war her cousin Saeddryn wants to declare. But Laela faces a far more dangerous enemy: the Night God herself wants Laela dead.

Faced by enemies on all sides, Laela must learn to rule, and survive, with her griffin partner Oeka by her side. As allies come from unexpected places, someone new will enter Laela's life: the mysterious shapeshifter Kullervo.

But soon the Night God will send the most dangerous enemy of all--the deadly Shadow That Walks, an invincible murderer created to fulfill only one mission: kill Laela.

Half-breed Queen Laela Taranisäii is in more danger than ever before. Her subjects hate her, her closest allies, including her griffin, have fallen, and, most worryingly, the Night God's immortal assassin, The Shadow That Walks, is bent upon reaping vengeance. As her enemies close in on all sides, her methods of maintaining power increase in desperation--and violence.

Laela's half-brother, Kullervo, is supposed to be her strongest ally. But as he comes to terms with both who he is and what his sister's reign means to the land, he begins to doubt his once strong loyalties. With the conflict drawing to its bloody close, he must decide what he's truly prepared to fight for, a choice that could have dire consequences for all he once held dear.

Meanwhile, a new threat is lurking in the darkness, the Night God's final, deadly pawn. It is this shadow that will decide the outcome of the war--and its power that will seal the fates of all involved...