Because the fire under the mountain does not fit inside a man. Each bond burns away something small and irreplaceable, and neither he nor the beast gets to choose what goes. And the enemy waiting at the end of the world is not a demon king with an army. It is a supply chain: a payroll, a fuel contract, a clerk who keeps immaculate books while people burn in the cellar beneath him.

Damian has no sword worth the name. What he has is eleven years of teaching, a working knowledge of chemistry, and a habit of explaining things to anyone who will hold the other end of a rope.

He will need a freed quartermaster who keeps a ledger of every debt he thinks he owes. A noblewoman who was sent to be spendable and decided to be spent well. An old hermit keeping a door nobody remembers the purpose of. And three ancient, furious, grieving creatures who have not spoken to each other in nine hundred years and have a great deal to get through.

THE BEASTLESS SON is an epic fantasy about competence and cost, about what is owed and who keeps the accounts - and about the difference between a weapon and a companion.

For readers who want their fantasy heroes to be adults, their found families hard-won, and their victories measured in what they were willing to pay.