Mark Lawrence brings to a thrilling close his epic trilogy of a boy who would be king, a king who would desire an empire--and an empire on the edge of destruction... King Jorg Ancrath is twenty now--and king of seven nations. His goal--revenge against his father--has not yet been realized, and the demons that haunt him have only grown stronger. Yet no matter how tortured his path, he intends to take the next step in his upward climb. For there is only one power worth wielding...absolute power. Jorg would be emperor. It is a position not to be gained by the sword but rather by vote. And never in living memory has anyone secured a majority of the vote, leaving the Broken Empire long without a leader. Jorg has plans to change that--one way or the other. He's uncovered even more of the lost technology of the land, and he won't hesitate to use it. But he soon finds an adversary standing in his way, a necromancer unlike any he has ever faced--a figure hated and feared even more than himself: the Dead King. The boy who would rule all may have finally met his match...