Demon in White

Hadrian Marlowe has spent almost a hundred years at war with the Cielcin, and his victories have turned him into a legend. When the Red Company takes a major battle, soldiers begin to worship the man they call Halfmortal. The devotion is a danger of its own, because powerful figures in the Empire have started to fear him, and his fame exposes both him and his company.

The Cielcin are changing too. A new leader is rising among them, one who hits the Empire with precise, strategic strikes rather than raiding border worlds. The enemy Hadrian knows is becoming a harder one to read.

Hadrian also wants to understand the Quiet, a vanished alien race. He suspects it has been steering his life toward some unknown end. Answers may be held in the Imperial Library. Only the Emperor can open its doors, which puts Hadrian's hopes in the hands of the very power that distrusts him.

This is space opera, told as Hadrian's own memoir. It is the third book of The Sun Eater, following Empire of Silence and Howling Dark, and it is best read after them.