Hailed by New York Times bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson as "a mix of The Lord of the Rings and Buffy the Vampire Slayer," the Noble Dead Saga has become one of the premiere dark fantasy sagas. Now a new chapter begins as a young woman discovers her true potential for heroics against the shadows of evil.... After escaping the castle of ancient vampires with Magiere and Leesil, Wynn Hygeorht has returned to Calm Seatt, home of the Guild of Sagecraft, bearing texts supposedly penned by vampires from the time of the Forgotten History and the Great War. Her superiors seize both the ancient texts and her personal journals, dismissing her tales of the undead as delusional fancies. But the guild's scholars have not dismissed the texts. Without Wynn's consent, they begin sending the texts out to scriptoriums for copying. Then one night several pages disappear—and the two sages charged with conveying these pages are murdered. Suspicious of the Guild, separated from the only friends she fully trusts, and convinced the Noble Dead are responsible for the killings, Wynn embarks on a quest to uncover the secrets of the texts, unaware of her allies from unexpected quarters...

The Noble Dead Saga is a national bestselling phenomenon. Now the epic finds the young scholar Wynn Hygeorht, without Magiere and Leesil to guide her, continuing her own dangerous quest—pursued by the forces of darkness. Wynn is determined to recover the ancient texts she brought back from the castle in the Farlands. She has only one hint to their location: She overhead one whispered dwarven word that suggested the "Stonewalkers" may be involved. So she journeys to the mountain stronghold of the dwarves in search of this unknown sect. With two uncertain allies as guides—Chane Andraso, a vampire, and Shade, an elven wolf—she must enter those depths and fathom ancestral religions, oral traditions, and deeper customs. In her obsession for the texts, she will find more puzzles and questions buried in secrets old and new... along with an enemy she thought destroyed.

“Another must-read... the Hendees, if given a chance to complete their entire saga, may yet produce a combined fantasy masterwork that will surely stand on the highest pinnacles of literary fantasy lore.... As always, the Hendees keep 'em coming." —Bookspot Central In each of its novels, the Noble Dead saga has swept readers into "action sequences that fantasy lore is made of"\ and "Tolkienesque fantasy [and] vampire-infused horror."\\* Now young journeyor sage Wynn Hygeorht finds herself cast into the wilds on a dangerous quest for knowledge that may instead lead to her own doom.... Wynn has returned safely to the Guild of Sagecraft with her companions, the vampire Chane Andraso and Shade, an elven wolf. Though Wynn managed to regain her seized journals, she received only a glimpse of the ancient texts penned by forgotten vampires, and once again, the volumes have slipped from her grasp. The price for her brief success may prove costly. For the animosity of her guild superiors has grown even fiercer. This time, instead of cloistering her, they purposely give her a mission so tedious, it will keep her out of the way for as long as possible. But Wynn has her own plans. She sets out in search of another dwarven stronghold: a place few have ever heard of called Bäalâle Seatt. It may well be the last resting place of an orb—one of five such mysterious devices used by the Ancient Enemy in the mythical war of the Forgotten History. Whatever caused Bäalâle to fall to the enemy, she knows that one mythical figure was somehow involved: the infamous Lord of Slaughter. And that dwarven mass murderer's direct descendant, an errant stonewalker, will never let Wynn out of his sight. If only that were all she had to worry about. \\ Publishers Weekly