NNELS Upgrade

The bonds of family, love, and loyalty are pushed to their limits in this thrilling conclusion to the epic saga started in The Bloodbound. As the war between Alden and Oridia draws to an end, the fates of both kingdoms rest on the actions of a select group of individuals-and, of course, on the unbreakable bonds of blood... Unbeknownst to most of Alden, King Erik, in thrall to a cruel bloodbinder, is locked away in his own palace, plotting revenge. To save her king, Lady Alix must journey behind enemy lines to destroy the bloodbinder.

As war between Alden and Oridia intensifies, King Erik must defend his kingdom from treachery and enemies on all sides-but the greatest danger lurks closer to home. When the war began, Lady Alix Black played a minor role, scouting at the edge of the king's retinue in relative anonymity. Though she's once again facing an attacking Oridian force determined to destroy all she holds dear, she is now bodyguard to the king and wife to the prince. Still, she is unprepared for what the revival of the war will mean.

A humorous and romantic sequel to Between the Lines.

When Daniel Blackland was six, he ingested his first bone fragment, a bit of kraken spine plucked out of the sand during a visit with his demanding, brilliant, and powerful magician father, Sebastian. When Daniel was twelve, he watched Sebastian die at the hands of the Hierarch of Southern California, devoured for the heightened magic layered deep within his bones. Now, years later, Daniel is a petty thief with a forged identity. Hiding amid the crowds in Los Angeles--the capital of the Kingdom of Southern California--Daniel is trying to go straight.

A cunning and impetuous scout, Alix only wishes to serve quietly on the edges of the action. But when the king is betrayed by his own brother and left to die at the hands of attacking Oridian forces, she winds up single-handedly saving her sovereign. Suddenly, she is head of the king's personal guard, an honor made all the more dubious by the king's exile from his own court. Surrounded by enemies, Alix must help him reclaim his crown, all the while attempting to repel the relentless tide of invaders led by the Priest, most feared of Oridia's lords.

Hyam is a likeable lad who will make a fine farmer someday. But he carries a burden few can fathom. As his mother slips toward death, she implores him to return to Long Hall, where he spent five years as an apprentice. It was there that Hyam's extraordinary capacity for mastering languages came to light'and soon cast him into the shadows of suspicion. How could any human learn the forbidden tongues with such ease' When Hyam dares to seek out the Mistress of the Sorceries, her revelation tears his world asunder.

The city of Voortyashtan was once the home of the goddess of death, war and destruction, but now it's little more than a ruin. General Turyin Mulaghesh is called out of retirement and sent to this hellish place to find a Saypuri secret agent who's gone AWOL in the middle of a mission. But the ghosts of past wars have followed her there, and soon she begins to wonder what happened to the souls in the afterlife when the gods were defeated by her people, the Polis. Do the dead sleep soundly in the land of death? Or do they have plans of their own?

"Where your shadow falls there shall be night everlasting. And all shall dwell within the night, and the night shall swallow all." Sigrud je Harkvaldsson has nothing left to live for. He is a fugitive and an exile, wanted for murder throughout the empire of Saypur. His entire existence has seemed only to visit suffering and death upon those he wants most to protect-while he himself has emerged from each battle cruelly unscathed, inexplicably immune to forces both natural and divine. Then his closest friend and ally, former Prime Minister Shara Komayd, is assassinated.

When a mysterious woman named Ceara shows up at his house, insisting that his dying sister-in-law can be cured if he marries her, Quincy Harrigan agrees despite his doubts, only to discover that she is a time-traveling druid.

Brought back to the mortal world as the Winter Knight to Mab, Harry Dresden is at the command of the Queen of Air and Darkness and is expected to kill an immortal, as he begins to realize there is a serious threat to endanger countless innocent victims unless he finds his way out of eternal subservience.