For the damned, redemption may be just a mad dream…

Years have passed since the demon Tarrik and his master, the sorcerer Ren, destroyed the servants of Samal and suppressed the very essence of the vile lord. The cost was greater than even a demon could have imagined. But in the realms of demons and humans, no evil can be fully controlled, and no one’s true fate can be foretold. Including Tarrik’s. He’s been summoned once more, now by the vengeful Linriel, who’s fallen in with one of Samal’s ravaged survivors.

Linriel takes Tarrik, bound again to serve, on a journey to the harsh southern lands to find the source of Ren’s coveted powers, and there they discover a part of Tarrik’s past he thought had been lost forever. As old bindings more powerful than sorcery fetter him, Tarrik is drawn into an obsessive and insane mission to erase the demon lord Samal from existence forever. And only if he succeeds will he at last be freed from exile.

As old threats are reborn, he must decide what sacrifices he’s willing to make and what risks he’s willing to take on the unforgiving road to redemption.

When he was eleven, Mitchell Hogan received The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and a love of fantasy novels was born. He spent the next ten years reading, rolling dice, and playing computer games, with some school and university thrown in. Along the way he accumulated numerous bookcases’ worth of fantasy and sci-fi novels and doesn’t look to stop anytime soon. For ten years he put off his dream of writing; then he quit his job and wrote A Crucible of Souls, winner of the 2013 Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel. The author of Shadow of the Exile and Dawn of the Exile in his Infernal Guardian series, Mitchell is eternally grateful to the readers who took a chance on an unknown self-published author. He lives in Sydney, Australia, with his wife, Angela, and his daughters, Isabelle and Charlotte. For more information, visit www.mitchellhogan.com.