In the cold of a French winter, a grieving blacksmith named Balian is offered a new path. His father, Godfrey of Ibelin, presents not absolution, but a journey east to Jerusalem. There, the hammer that shaped iron will be replaced by a sword, and a life defined by sorrow will be forged anew by choice. He arrives in a kingdom of contradictions. A city where a masked and merciful King Baldwin the...
