In the sweltering heat of the 12th-century Levant, Sir Kaelan, a knight weary of war and haunted by his sins, is given command of a remote, forgotten outpost: the Citadel of Akras. Meant to be a quiet post far from the front lines, it is a place of sun-bleached stone and unsettling silence. But the Citadel is built upon a history far older and darker than the Crusades. An ancient, malevolent entity slumbers in the rock beneath, an entity that feeds on faith and twists piety into paranoia. As the water turns foul and whispers slither through the corridors at night, Kaelan and his men find themselves besieged not by an army, but by a creeping madness from within. Their crusade for God becomes a desperate battle for their very souls against a shadow that wears their own faces.
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