As humanity's enemies rise, the only two men capable of defeating them are divided against each other by the most deadly demons of all-those lurking in the human heart. Once Arlen and Jardir were as close as brothers. Inevera's motives and past are shrouded in mystery, and even Jardir does not entirely trust her. His rise was engineered by his First Wife, Inevera, a cunning and powerful priestess whose formidable demon bone magic gives her the ability to glimpse the future.

Together, they will stand against the night. But Jardir did not come to power on his own. Now, with hope for the future fading, three young survivors of vicious demon attacks will dare the impossible, stepping beyond the crumbling safety of the wards to risk everything in a desperate quest to regain the secrets of the past. He carries ancient weapons-a spear and a crown-that give credence to his claim, and already vast swaths of the green lands bow to his control. Ahmann Jardir has forged the warlike desert tribes of Krasia into a demon-killing army and proclaimed himself Shar'Dama Ka, the Deliverer. The only one with hope of keeping Arlen in the world of men, or joining him in his descent into the world of demons, is Renna Tanner, a fierce young woman in danger of losing herself to the power of demon magic.

Many would follow him, but Arlen's path threatens to lead to a dark place he alone can travel to, and from which there may be no returning. Arlen denies he is the Deliverer at every turn, but the more he tries to be one with the common folk, the more fervently they believe. A collection of the first three books of the impressive debut fantasy series The Demon Cycle, and two novellas set in the same world. Arlen Bales was once an ordinary man, but now he has become something more-the Warded Man, tattooed with eldritch wards so powerful they make him a match for any demon. From Penguin Random House: On the night of the new moon, the demons rise in force, seeking the deaths of two men, both of whom have the potential to become the fabled Deliverer, the man prophesied to reunite the scattered remnants of humanity in a final push to destroy the demon corelings once and for all.

The demon cycle book 3