The Chronicle Of The Cello Book One : The Traitor's Scroll - The Chronicle Of The Cello, #1

The opening salvo of a gritty, heavy-hitting grim dark epic set in the brutal northern frontier. 

Twenty years ago, during the third year of the rule of the Emperor Tati, a quiet northern village burned to ash under a violent, unpunished siege . The central empire paid absolutely no attention to the squabbles of remote domains, leaving the former veteran soldiers who built the frontier deeply resentful of the spoiled noble families in the civilized core .

Now, a quiet storm brews in the village of Whitestone . Magnus "The Cello" Hojlund—a towering seventeen-year-old giant who stands as tall as his father—holds a lethal grudge against anyone who dares cross his family line . When Mason Rasmus, the arrogant son of an exiled royal scholar, begins plotting a treacherous internal coup to replace Chieftain Hogomus, Magnus takes matters into his own hands, dragging the young aristocrat to the freezing depths of the local lake to force an absolute submission .

But out in the dense thickets, an even darker threat is lurking . The remote, unforgiving domain of Krakenfelt has quietly sent a ruthless assassin to strike at the chieftain's household . 

As steel clashes in the shadows and a brilliant trap backfires with a horrific, bloody finality, the proud family finds their survival hanging on a single, devastating realization : out on the savage edges of the dynasty, status means absolutely nothing . Only raw strength survives .