Prologue: The Face in the Mirror

  The mirror in the grand ducal chamber was framed in gold, older than the kingdom itself. But the face staring back at me was a lie.

  The servants outside the door called me My Lord. The generals in the war room awaited my command. The enemies at the border feared my lineage—a lineage that stretched back three hundred years.

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  They did not know that the real lord was rotting in a shallow grave, his name forgotten by the very soil he once owned.

  They did not see the commoner who had starved in the gutter. They did not see the strategist who had betrayed his own for a crust of bread. They did not see the slave who had learned to kill for the amusement of crowds, nor the gladiator who had crawled out of the fighting pits with nothing but hate in his heart.

  I adjusted the heavy velvet collar around my neck. It felt less like a garment and more like a noose.

  I am Henville. I am a thief of names, a usurper of blood, and the greatest liar this world has ever seen.

  The performance begins now.