In the holy city of Othir, treachery and corruption lurk at the end of every street, just the place for a freelance assassin with no loyalties and a few scruples. Caim makes his living on the edge of a blade, but when a routine job goes south, he is thrust into the middle of an insidious plot. Pitted against crooked lawmen, rival killers and sorcery from the Other Side, his only allies are Josephine, the socialite daughter of his last target, and Kit, a guardian spirit no one else can see. In this fight for his life, Caim only trusts his knives and his instincts, but they won't be enough when his quest for justice leads him from Othir's hazardous back alleys to its shining corridors of power. To unmask a conspiracy at the heart of the empire, he must claim his birthright as the Shadow's Son...

Welcome to a dark world, where even the shadows are deadly... Danger lurks in the unforgiving Northlands, and a sinister magic lurks in the shadows waiting for its moment to strike. It’s the worst place to be searching for something, even for an assassin with no loyalties and even fewer scruples... In Othir, he was at the top of the food chain. An assassin beyond compare. A dark shadow in the night. But Caim left that life behind when he helped an empress claim her throne. And now his past has come calling again. Searching for the truth behind the murder and disappearance of his parents in the bitterly cold Northlands of his birth, Caim finds himself in a land in thrall to the Shadow. A wielder of the darkest kinds of blood magic imaginable holds his homeland in their iron fist, crushing all opposition beneath their tyrannous boot. Haunted by temptations from the Other Side, by turns in control of his magic and at the mercy of the Shadow, Caim becomes mired in a war he does not want to fight. But there are some things a son of the Shadow cannot ignore, and some battles from which he can’t run. If Caim is going to survive—and if he’s to uncover the truth about his own magic and his parent’s death—then he is going to have to fight. But will his strength and skill be enough? Can anyone resist the Shadow’s Lure...?

A land of death and shadow where only the strongest survive. Yet that is where Caim must go to follow the mystery at the heart of his life. Armed only with his knives and his companions, he plunges into a world of eternal night where the sun is never seen and every hand is turned against him. Caim has buried his father’s sword and found some measure of peace, but deep in the north an unfathomable power lies waiting. To succeed on this mission, Caim will have to do more than just survive. He must face the Shadow’s Master. With this novel, Jon Sprunk brings his action-packed trilogy to an epic conclusion.