In the farthest north, the vampire lord Acrisius rules over a realm of ice and shadow. Once a century, he summons a young noble girl from the lands of summer to be his bride. Legend says that these brides become inhuman shadows of their former selves before withering away.
Such is Sibylla's fate, claimed as a sacrifice to preserve her country against the ravages of eternal winter. Head held high despite her fear, she enters his world of darkness and depravity and struggles to preserve her sense of self against the onslaught of pleasure and pain visited upon her in the name of preparing her for the Emperor's touch. Escape is but a distant dream, and her only hope for survival is to become what he demands her to be.
Sibylla's beloved, the young knight Garath, pursues her into the pitiless dark, hoping to rescue her from her imprisonment, but the Emperor's former bride Minaraja claims him for her own. He must allow her to mold him, shape him, into an instrument meant solely for her debased pleasure . . . and for vengeance. This path of half-living transformation will someday cost his life, but might buy Sibylla a chance to escape.
In the darkness of winter, at the ends of the earth, freedom cannot be bought with a sacrifice of life . . . the sacrifice is their humanity.
