Introduction: The war was won. But for the dark arts used to gain their desperate victory, the sigil-knights of Saint Celund were branded outcasts, their order disbanded.Stripped of his rank and sundered from his sigil-magic, Ehrban lives as a hermit with nothing but regrets and dark dreams of a dead goddess. It's the only way to protect his loved ones from the curse he’s carried since the final battle at Ungberg.But when a devastating plague breaks out, the former knights of Saint Celund are offered a holy pardon to help stop it. Ehrban is unwilling: he can no longer do magic and has sworn never to fight again. To make matters worse, leading the expedition is Pinadarya, a skilled alchemist-physician and Ehrban’s soulbonded whom he abandoned when he returned from the war a broken man.For the sake of old comrades, however, he has no choice but to pick up his sword again. To face bandits, demons, a changed world — and the darkness he thought he left behind with the war.The same darkness that is leading him back to Ungberg....