The Waking Debt

The king is dying. The hunt is now the law. The mountain will be paid in public.

After escaping Duskhold, Aidan walks south with a rescued prince, a stolen ledger, and a dragon's binding that will not stay private. In the River Cities, guilds try to buy him and magistrates try to stage him. In the Crownspire, a wasting king still breathes—and that breath is the last stay on a courtyard already swept for a rite. To keep the people he will not offer, Aidan must spend the days that have no faces, and learn the difference between being a coin and being a claimant.

Book Two of The Shadowfire Throne.