Book excerpt: "A winner!” —Ed Greenwood, internationally-bestselling creator of The Forgotten Realms® In the Four Kingdoms, the Holy Clerisy preaches that the gods are dead, and prayer is the path to Hell. Anyone who defies doctrine is punished for heresy. But blind faith can damn a soul as surely as betrayal. Ryn Ruscroft, once sworn to serve as the Clerisy’s loyal soldier, finds himself torn between conscience and duty one bitter winter’s night. Those slain include his best friend, felled by his own hand. Josalind Aumbrae has been tormented all her life by the Voices and their visions—an affliction that could have her facing a witch’s pyre. If only she could understand what they want. Banished to Dragon’s Claw Abbey at the edge of the world, Ryn and Josalind discover a place built on more than penance and forgetting. What they find at the Claw will turn them into fugitives hunted by hellspawn, heretics, and Ryn’s former commander. But more sinister forces have awoken—ancient things eager to settle old scores and find pawns among the outcast. When they cry for vengeance, the Living Sword must have a hand to wield it. A mortal it can reshape into the Earth Breaker, the Soul Taker, the Bane of All Things.