To Defeat A Criminal, He Must First Become One
On the morning of his fifteenth birthday, Tanase Balan expects to begin his future as an apprentice in his father’s medical practice. Before noon, that future is gone. By nightfall, it has given way to a quest for revenge.
When soldiers of the provincial ruler Lord Danesti murder Tanase’s parents and abduct his little sister, Tanase escapes with nothing but the clothes on his back. Alone and desperate, he knows he’s living on borrowed time as he tries to survive. But after stealing food at the local market, he is confronted by a mysterious man with an enticing choice: continue living like an outlaw until you’re caught, or join our secret society, and we will help you avenge your family.
Tanase is trained in the arts of theft and deception, while a bold plan to unseat the Danesti family from power is slowly being hatched. Smuggled into the lord’s impregnable treasury, Tanase is tasked with stealing the royal scepter that is entrusted to Danesti’s care. He will then exchange it for a replica designed to convince the King in a spectacular manner that Danesti has misappropriated the original. But standing in his way is Radu, a brutal enemy who wants him dead, and the discovery that his sister is still alive, imprisoned inside the castle.
Now Tanase must choose between completing the mission that would give him retribution or risking everything to save the only family he has left.
