Cypress Monroe: shapeshifter, spymaster, dearly departed. Cypress went to her grave having discovered a plot to overthrow her queen-and her paramour. Now, her soul scours the realm between life and death for a way to get word to her beloved before it' s too late. Dimereial, an angel of redemption, has an offer for Cypress. If she can relieve a few fellow souls of their worst memories before they shuffle on, Cypress will have an audience with the right people in time to save her lover. Memory theft is a heinous crime in Nox Valar, but if it' s done to save the living and dead alike, what' s the harm? Rasa' s first memory, her only memory, is crashing in the Ashen Fields, a flash of screaming soulfire and momentous impact. Then she was fighting, beset by tattered shadows that clawed and scratched and wailed as she tore their essence from them. Secan, a shepherd of lost souls, found her there. Amidst a mound of sundered undead, he' s inherited his hardest task yet: trying to guide a soul that doesn' t know itself.
