In the kingdom of Nivo, dark times have come. The people have forgotten the Old God and the Guards, who for centuries protected them from the ghosts of darkness, and now they worship the Silent Gods—whose will is carried out by the cardinal, hiding cruelty behind faith. Charlotte Sand is destined to help the souls of the dead find peace, but everything changes when the cardinal’s guards take away what is most precious to her. In her fight for justice, she turns to the Guard, whose heart has been kept for years in a straw effigy. And no one—even the captain of the guards, Luc de Montaign—will stop Charlotte.