<p><strong>Only a bastard can save a kingdom from chaos.</strong></p><p></p><p>A childless queen confined to the palace.</p><p></p><p>A king overly enamored of male companionship.</p><p></p><p>The kingdom desperately needs an heir.</p><p></p><p>Who will father one?</p><p></p><p>Two courtiers ask Keladon, retired battlemage and the king's bastard half-brother, to make his way in secret to the queen's bedchamber. His loyalty to the kingdom overcomes his dread of palace intrigues and his guilt in turning her, a foreign princess, into a royal captive decades ago.</p><p></p><p>Their brief encounter leads to his unrequitable love for her.</p><p></p><p>Keladon returns to the castle nine months later to celebrate the proclamation of his secret son as the king's child and heir. But within the castle's walls and the nearby city, he stumbles across a conspiracy of magic and murder. Acting alone, in the shadows, only he can save the kingdom from the ultimate treachery - and protect the one woman he would risk his life for.</p>