War cannot break the bond of love.
In love with her brother’s wife, Rowen seeks penance in the shape of Crusade.
When she marches south to join the Albigensian Crusade, she believes holy war may cleanse her of sin. But the crusade offers no salvation. Drawn into a fanatical brotherhood of zealots, she finds herself at the heart of one of the medieval world’s most brutal massacres. As horrors abound, she begins to question God’s plan for her.
Far from the battlefield, Roland learns the impossible. His sister is alive, having been miraculously healed by a surgeon heading off to war. Now Roland must cross into war-ravaged Languedoc to find her, accompanied by the wife who binds them together. Haunted by love, guilt, and forbidden longing, Roland, Rowen, and Amarys must discover whether reconciliation is still possible—or whether some sins can only be carried, never cleansed.