Synopsis

TREACHERY AMID THE DARK MENACE AND MAGIC OF THE GERMAN WILDERNESS.

Carnuntum, 38 AD. Far from the intrigues of Caligula’s Rome, a dusty frontier settlement clings to a riverbank near a legion fortress. A young man paces the streets, eyeing the forested wilderness across the Danube.

Stunned by his father’s terrible sacrifices, Marcus Carinna sees one hope of redeeming his patrician family’s honor: to recover a legion Eagle captured years ago. To succeed he needs the help of his beloved, the Germanic priestess Aurima.

Aurima had promised to rejoin him after obtaining the support of her own father, a chieftain who is a brutal enemy of Rome. But that was months ago. Only a fool would dare venture among the hostile tribes of the Amber Road to find her . . . especially with his mother’s temperamental secretary, a mute Thracian horse-boy, and two quarrelsome ex-gladiators as his only companions.

When an imperial spymaster recruits him for a secret mission, Marcus jumps at the chance to search for Aurima. But as he leads his troops into the Germanic wilderness, he will discover that he is not out of Caligula’s reach after all—and that recovering his lost love and his own honor will demand more courage than he knew he possessed.