For Richard Because you're like Rain Man with numbers, and you don't laugh at me 'cause I'm not. Jag älskar dig för alltid Acknowledgments My heartfelt thanks go out to the Gibson Hall Grid. You know cryptography, so I don't have to. And much love to the usual suspects: Gena, Boo, Beth, and Rocki. All fabulous authors and amazing friends. Prologue Rothkalina, the Kingdom of the Rage Demons In ages long past Cadeon Woede came upon the headless bodies of his foster father and brothers first, the three slain in a desperate defense of their home. Their remains littered the ground near a demolished section of the barricades around their farmstead. Cadeon recognized the merciless slaughter as the work of revenants, corpse creatures dispatched by Omort the Deathless, their kingdom's most dreaded enemy. He shuddered in stunned disbelief, his mind refusing to accept this... The girls - Like a shot, he charged up a hillock to the smoldering shell of the family's house. His foster sisters might have escaped into the forest. Heart thundering, he searched the ruins, praying to find nothing within. Sweat rolled down his face and into his eyes, mingling with the swirling ash and soot. In the area where the hearth used to be, he found what was left of his younger foster sisters. They'd been burned, and while they were still alive. Their muscles had contracted in the heat,