Book four of Blood and Ash picks up weeks after The Crown of Gilded Bones, with Casteel Da'Neer held prisoner beneath Carsodonia and Penellaphe — Poppy — willing to tear down everything the Blood Crown stands for to get him back. Backed by the wolven, the draken and the guards of the Primal of Life, she has to convince Atlantia's generals to fight the war her way: there is no retreat this time, not if there is to be a peace both kingdoms can live in afterwards.
What Poppy uncovers is that Isbeth's ambitions run far deeper than a border quarrel between Atlantia and Solis, reaching back to primal powers the Known World stopped naming long ago. Stopping them may require Poppy to become the one thing she has always refused to be — the Harbinger of Death and Destruction the prophecy named her.
It is the first book in the series to split its narration, alternating Poppy's chapters with Casteel's from inside his cell, and the first to give as much room to councils, sieges and strategy as to the two of them. Adult fantasy romance with explicit content.
