For our own Knights and legionares, the men and women of the United States Armed Forces. If you didn't do what you do, I couldn't do what I do. Thank you. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This one owes deep debts of gratitude to my editor, Anne Sowards, who deserves something for having to put up with me. Another big thank-you goes out to Priscilla, for going above and beyond the call of fandom in helping make the map of Alera, finally. Thanks also to the many fans at the jim-butcher.com forums, whose efforts helped us to refine and create the map by providing us with multiple reference points upon the maps they have made. And, as ever, thank you, Shannon and JJ. PROLOGUE The steadholt was located several miles south of the ruined wasteland that had once been Alera Imperia, and it was an old one. Windmanes had not been sighted there in more than six centuries. Furystorms had been absent for even longer than that. The land, for miles about, had been a patchwork of farmlands, steadholts, villages, and roads for hundreds of years. Wild furies had been so few and so feeble that they were all but extinct. As a result, the little steadholt had not been built with stone walls surrounding it, or with a heavy stone central hall for shelter from fury-inspired weather. It was instead