Jorg and the brothers burn and loot the village of Mabberton, establishing the brutal life Jorg leads on the road.

The brothers find Father Gomst, the King's own priest, hanging alive in a gibbet on the Lichway.

Reanimated corpses rise from the Lichway bogs and attack the brothers; a bog spirit enters Jorg but flees from his mind.

In a flashback, young Jorg hangs wounded in hook-briars and learns that Count Renar's men killed his mother and brother.

Jorg rides up to Renar's son Marclos under a white flag and kills him by stabbing him in the eye.

Jorg leads the brothers in routing Renar's force of a hundred men using trip-pits and a hidden ambush.

In a flashback, Jorg releases the Nuban's shackle in Olidan's dungeon, and the Nuban kills his two torturers.

In a flashback, Jorg steps over the unconscious Lundist and escapes Tall Castle by joining the released brigands.

Jorg meets the sorcerer Sageous in the library and partially resists the magician's attempt to control his mind.

Jorg snatches a crossbow during a throne room confrontation and shoots Sir Galen through the nose, killing him instantly.

King Olidan privately orders Jorg to capture the impregnable Castle Red and gives him command of the Forest Watch.

Jorg's group escapes the mountain as he triggers an ancient weapon, obliterating the Castle Red in a massive explosion.

Jorg demands his birthright in open court; Olidan responds by stabbing him under the ribs and having Makin arrested.

Corion seizes control of Jorg at the tourney, but a horse's kick sends the sorcerer onto Jorg's blade.

Jorg claims the Renar Highlands as his own and locks the defeated Count Renar in the dungeon below.

Jorg Ancrath, a prince who has spent four years leading a brutal band of outlaws, seeks revenge against Count Renar for the murder of his mother and brother. A chance encounter with the royal priest Father Gomst pulls Jorg back toward civilization, and his father King Olidan sends him on a near-suicidal mission to destroy the impregnable Castle Red. Jorg uncovers ancient weapons buried beneath the fortress and uses one to obliterate it, but his triumphant return earns him a knife in the chest from Olidan rather than the recognition he demands. After a brush with death, Jorg frees his loyal captain Makin and rides to challenge Count Renar at his stronghold, The Haunt. At the tourney, an act of chance kills the sorcerer Corion and frees Jorg from years of magical manipulation, allowing him to breach The Haunt and seize the Renar Highlands. The novel closes with Jorg enthroned as the new Count, his childhood revenge achieved and his ambitions only just beginning.

The core story of Jorg's rise from outlaw prince to conqueror

Jorg stabs Brother Gemt in the neck after Gemt criticizes his decision to burn the village of Mabberton.

In a flashback, Jorg survives a nine-week fever after the assassination attempt, becoming dangerously violent and seemingly possessed.

Jorg rescues Father Gomst from the gibbet and redirects the brothers away from the Horse Coast toward Tall Castle.

The brothers reach the burned village of Norwood, and Jorg reveals to his men that it is his 14th birthday.

In a flashback, Jorg learns that his father accepted blood money from Count Renar rather than seeking military vengeance.

Jorg interrogates Count Renar's captured knight Sir Renton using a nail, then hands him over to the village peasants to burn.

In a flashback, a hunter sent by Sageous attacks Jorg and the Nuban in a barn; the Nuban kills the hunter.

Sageous attacks Jorg through his dreams with apparitions of his dead mother and brother urging him to jump from the window.

Jorg topples the glass tree in the throne room to interrupt Makin's forced duel against the King's champion Sir Galen.

Jorg pushes Lord Vincent de Gren off a cliff to seize control of the Forest Watch and appoints Coddin as Master.

The Nuban identifies Sageous as the dream-witch who enchanted the brothers to sleep and caused their capture four years earlier.

Jorg offers Father Gomst to the Leucrota as their priest in exchange for safe passage through the mountain.

Jorg finds the necromancer Chella feeding on the Nuban and shoots a crossbow bolt through the Nuban's chest into her.

After the Castle Red explodes, Jorg overhears the ghosts of Chella, Sageous, and Jane discussing the true players of the game.

Jorg ambushes tournament contestant Sir Alain Kennick on the road and steals his armor to disguise himself at the tourney.

The road to Jorg's final victory is paved with calculated brutality, from stabbing a dissenting brother to hurling the Forest Watch's lord off a cliff and installing a loyal replacement. Jorg's bitter discovery that his father accepted blood money for his family's murders cements his determination to act alone, and his early flight from the castle plants the seeds of the alliances he will later rely on. At his father's court, Sageous wages a dream-war against Jorg while bold moves in the throne room put both Makin's life and Jorg's future on the line. The mission beneath the Castle Red demands the ultimate sacrifice when Jorg must shoot a crossbow bolt through the Nuban, his most trusted companion, to stop the necromancer Chella. Overhearing the ghost conversation after the explosion gives Jorg a clear picture of who the real players in the game are and what is at stake. Disguising himself to enter Renar's tournament is the last of Jorg's deceptions, setting the stage for the violent reckoning that follows.

The battles, confrontations, and alliances that shape Jorg's path

Jorg narrates how Count Renar's assassins murdered his mother and younger brother while he watched helplessly from the hook-briars.

In a flashback, Jorg punches the largest sparring trainee in the throat and tells Makin that fighting is not a game.

Guard captain Coddin escorts Jorg and the brothers to the Tall Castle gates after Father Gomst reveals Jorg's true identity.

In a flashback, the Nuban tells Jorg that a dream-witch put their band to sleep so the King's men could capture them.

Jorg nearly collides with Princess Katherine in a corridor and impulsively invites her to breakfast in the castle kitchens.

Sageous mentally entrances Jorg in the throne room, forcing him to stand obediently beside Olidan's thrones during Makin's duel.

By studying ancient books, Jorg deduces that the Castle Red was built above a store of deadly Builder weapons.

Sageous confronts Jorg and suggests that most of his actions over the past four years have actually benefited Count Renar.

Leucrota leader Jane warns Jorg there is a dark hand on his shoulder and a hole in his memories.

Jorg immediately beheads a second necromancer near the Great Stair, then impulsively cuts out and eats a piece of its heart.

Jorg convinces an ancient trapped AI voice to open the sealed armory vault door by promising to end its lonely existence.

In a flashback, Jorg and the Nuban visit Renar's capital, where the sorcerer Corion places both of them under his enchantment.

Beyond the threshold of death, Jorg meets an angel offering peace and forgiveness but refuses her and forces himself back to life.

Princess Katherine rushes Jorg with a knife after finding Hanna unconscious; Jorg knocks Katherine out with a vase and escapes.

Jorg calls Count Renar his uncle and commands the voices of the nearby dead to scatter Renar's terrified guards.

Jorg's identity is forged by a single catastrophic night when Renar's assassins murdered his family before his eyes, a wound he carries through every decision that follows. Key revelations accumulate as he slowly uncovers the hidden architecture of the game, from learning that a dream-witch enslaved the brothers to receiving Jane's warning about a void in his own memory. Each confrontation strips away another layer of illusion — Sageous suggesting Jorg has been a tool rather than an agent, the restored memory naming Corion as the true puppet master, and an ancient AI opening a vault that exposes the apocalyptic weapons of the old world. Jorg's choices in these moments define him as much as the revelations themselves: refusing the angel's offer of peace, sparing Katherine, and tricking a lonely machine to gain access to weapons that will change the war. By the novel's end, Jorg has transformed from a manipulated piece into a player, having turned the game's own tools against its architects. These turning points trace a young man who chooses to own his darkness rather than surrender it, even when surrender would mean salvation.