Page 51 (1/2)

PROLOGUE

Summer 1134

Holy Lands

They once called her a witch and a whore

But no longer

She sat astride a gray destrier as the black-are of battle Bodies littered the fields ahead, Musli crows and ravens, chasing theers—those on two legs—picked through the dead, pulling off boots, yanking out arrows for their points and feathers A few faces lifted to stare, then quickly turned away again

She knehat they saw, another knight aht here Her brsts were hidden under a padded habergeon and a hauberk of mail Her dark hair, cropped to her shoulders, shorter than most men’s, lay under a conical helmet; her fine features further obscured by a nasal bar Strapped to the side of her saddle, a double-edged broadsword bu off the s

Only a fe she was not a man—and none knew she held secrets far darker than her hidden gender

Her squire waited for her at the edge of a rutted road The path wound steeply up to an isolated stone keep The hulking structure, hidden deep within the Naphtali Mountains of Galilee, had no name and looked as if it had been carved out of the hill itself Beyond its battlements, the red sun sat low on the horizon, obscured by the smoke from campfires and torched fields

The young squire dropped to a knee as she drew her horse to a halt beside him

“Is he still there?” she asked

A nod Frightened “Lord Godefroy awaits you ahead”

Her squire refused to look in the direction of the stone-crowned keep She had no such reluctance She tilted her helet a better view

At long last …

She had spent sixteen years—going back to when her uncle founded the Order of the Poor Knights of the Te for the impossible Even her uncle did not understand her request to join the Templars, but her side of the faiven the white inal nine, hidden away, as faceless as the helrew around her both in number and prominence

Others of her fahtly order froe, searching for powerful relics froypt and the Holy Lands Despite their best planning, they’d certainly had their failures Just a year ago, they’d i—the relics of the three biblical kings, said to hold the secrets to lost alchemies

She would not let today mark another failure

With a snap of the reins, she urged her horse up the rocky path With each passing step, the nuuardians of the keep put up a final and futile struggle to withstand the assault Reaching the suates to the keep broken and splintered, battered apart by a massive steel-shod ram