The boy Emperor Hildebrand has been driven from the throne of Valkarion by the High Priestess of the Temple. Hunted through the streets of his dying empire, he finds unlikely refuge with Alfrid of Aslak: a barbarian warrior from the frozen north, the verydestroyer foretold in ancient prophecy. She is everything the empire despises: heathen, savage, outside every law of civilization. Yet when their eyes meet, something collapses. Alfrid swears to reclaim the Imperium for her lover, or die trying beneath the double moons. What follows is a storm of blood and steel, political intrigue, and a love that defies every custom and god of a crumbling civilization. Written in the early 1950s, this is Poul Anderson at his most pulp-romantic: a tale of empire falling, prophecy twisting, and two people from opposite ends of the world choosing each other anyway.
