Syrus Valerius is the longest-reigning king of vampires, feared by his own kind and indifferent to his crown. Among the many souls he has devoured, only one shadow carries a name: Fidus.

When Ceres asks where Fidus came from, Syrus takes her back to a dusty crossroads centuries ago. There, a starving, cloaked figure sat waiting for the end, until a chatty stranger with a satchel of letters refused to walk past him.

Fidus wasn’t always a shadow, and Syrus remembers who he was before.