

"In our tenth year together, the King of the Gods, Aetheon, threw the grandest wedding I had ever seen on the peak of Mount Olympus. And at the ceremony itself, he calmly told me he had cheated on me. ""Go on with the rite, or stop it right now. It's your call."" He swirled the wine in his cup, bored. He told me that just before the ceremony began, he had sex with a mortal girl. The world went cold around me. I stared up at the king standing high above me. ""Do you love her that much?"" His brow creased slightly, as if he thought I was making too much of it. ""Not really. She's a fragile little mortal, nothing more."" ""You've just been so proper, so well-behaved these past ten years. Never a flaw I could find. It was interesting, for once, to be adored by someone who didn't know any better."" He turned the thunder ring on his finger as if none of it mattered. ""Don't worry. If you choose to go through with the ceremony, you'll still be my queen—no question. And if you want to throw a fit about it, fine. Throw your fit. I won't stop you."" I stood frozen on the altar platform. I had waited ten years for this day. And now the perfect ceremony in front of me pressed down on my chest until I couldn't breathe."

After three years of bloody battles in the Northern Territory, General Theo Howard vanquishes enemy chieftains and secures the borders, only to witness his loved ones being tormented in his hometown—his sister bullied by a wealthy scoundrel, his mother kneeling in court pleading injustice only to be beaten with rods! Government offices collude with the powerful who run rampant, even martyr pensions are swallowed by corruption... Theo removes his battle robe and unsheathes his cold blade: “This kingdom, I will protect; this human world, I will set right!” From the countryside to the imperial court, from slaying tyrants to protecting the monarch, a storm of blood and violence sweeps through.