The Tsar Is Dead

December 1355. Tsar Stefan Dušan, ruler of the Serbian Empire and one of the most powerful men in medieval Europe, dies suddenly on the road at the height of his power. The court calls it a fever. The empire calls it the will of God.

On the Holy Mountain, the hieromonk Nikodim—once the tsar's childhood friend—hears two words he cannot accept: the tsar is dead.

Summoned by the widowed Empress Jelena, he follows the last road of the man he loved like a brother, into a world of imperial politics, conflicting interests, old injustices, and testimonies that are not always what they seem. And the deeper he goes, the clearer it becomes that behind the great events of history lie the lives of ordinary people—and that truth and justice do not always lead down the same path.

What really happened to Tsar Dušan? And what price must a man pay to learn the truth?

The Tsar Is Dead is an atmospheric historical mystery of faith, power, and conscience, and of the fragile boundary between law and mercy. The first novel of The Hundred Years' Dusk.