Enforcer Nysska Stonegate-the first-ever non-human member of the Imperial Criminal Investigation Ministry-thought she might have won at least a measure of acceptance when she solved the murder of the Empire's foremost Runemaster. She couldn't have been more wrong.

Now Emperor Valco himself has Nysska and the rest of the Ninth Crucible in his sights. He's set the investigative team a near-impossible task: find the perpetrator responsible for the grisliest, most unimaginable mass murder in the Empire's history...or suffer the consequences.

Secret after secret is revealed as Nysska pulls back the crime's raw skin-exposing old atrocities, vast conspiracies, and ultimate truths that shake her understanding of the world itself. Nysska's life will never be the same as she faces the monsters behind THE BLACK-HORNED GRAVE.