They call the Malar Dorah unbreakable. Five centuries it stood unconquered until foul trickery cracked its gates. Now, it is the final bastion of a retreating northern army, and the culmination of a long-raging war. The warlord Belerod stands at the Dorah's doorstep with a horde at his back, set on testing the meaning of unbreakable with his golems.

Fourteen of his creations waded into the Diamond Wars, and now only eight remain. Their second-youngest, Task, has seen every blood-washed battle; every crippling defeat and valiant push. And now, at the end, the soldiers whisper of a wizard hiding behind the Dorah's vast walls.

For the first and last time in this war, it seems magic will fight magic.

Set several centuries before the events of Ben Galley's standalone novel The Heart of Stone, "Shards" is a prequel tale of Task's beginnings in the Diamond Wars.