Frank Carlson Library

Kithamar is a center of trade and wealth, an ancient city with a long, bloody history where countless thousands live and their stories endure. Alys is simply a petty thief from the slums of Longhill. But when her brother is murdered, she sets out to discover who killed him and why. The more she unearths about him, the more she learns about herself, and the truths she finds are more dangerous than knives. Swept up in an intrigue as deep as the roots...

In King's Landing, Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, the Hand of King Robert Baratheon, is surrounded by enemies. Some are openly declared, such as Ser Jaime Lannister and his sister, Queen Cersei. Others are hidden in the shadows. Still others wear the smiling mask of friends. But all are deadly, as Eddard is about to discover. Nor is the enmity between Eddard and the Lannister siblings the sole source of friction between these powerful noble families....

In this second volume, the action moves from the icy north, where the bastard Jon Snow seeks to carve out a place for himself among the bitter outcasts and hardened criminals sworn to service upon the Wall ... to the decadent south and the capital city of King's Landing, where Jon's father, Lord Eddard Stark, serves as the Hand of King Robert Baratheon amid a nest of courtly vipers ... to the barbarian lands across the Narrow Sea, where the young...