Darkness may come and it may be long.
The civil war between the Court of White Rose and the revolutionist Reds has raged on for a decade, leaving the throne bankrupt and the tsardom on its last legs. Prince Alexander, the youngest in the family of royal white witches, is only nineteen and infatuated with a danseur of the Grand Theater. He yearns for peace and dreams of freedom from obligations to his father. But when the tsar is assassinated and the Razumov stronghold falls to alchemist weapons, Alexander is plunged into a world of dark magic, treachery, and brutality. Through trials that test his soul, he becomes the Warlock of Muscovy, Alexander the Cruel, all the while falling in love with a foreign prince who saved his life.
Twenty years later, his daughter Marina faces tribulations of her own. Taken hostage by the Federation and imprisoned on foreign lands, she must reconcile with her alchemist lineage, face off with an old enemy of her family, and escape in time to save the warlock bent on a perilous mission. On the way, she unearths a lie that has been told for two decades. But what can she do with such a secret if all ears are deaf to the truth?
The second installment in the Sun War Trilogy, this intensely dark tale of magic and mayhem is full of grey characters that blur the line between good and evil.
Content warning for strong language, graphic violence, and intimate situations.
