Rule of Wolves

Rule of Wolves is a fantasy novel by the American writer Leigh Bardugo, published by Imprint in 2021. It is the seventh novel in her Grishaverse and the final book of the King of Scars duology.

The story takes place several weeks after the end of King of Scars, and it is told in the third person from the perspectives of Nikolai Lantsov, Zoya Nazyalensky, Nina Zenik, Mayu Kir-Kaat and the Darkling, who appears under the name of the Monk. Queen Makhi Kir-Taban of Shu Han is plotting to kill her sister Ehri before she can take the throne, and a blot of darkness resembling the Shadow Fold has spread past the Unsea into Shu Han. Nina Zenik has infiltrated the Ice Court under the alias Mila Jandersdat, where she serves as a courtier to Hanne Brum; the two of them decide that Hanne must enter the Heartwood, a competition between women to decide who they will marry, and she gains the favour of Fjerda's Prince Rasmus by using her Grisha healing power to lessen his chronic illness.

Bardugo's Grishaverse novels are set in the same invented world across several series and periods, and this one closes the duology that began with King of Scars. The two books follow characters who were introduced in the earlier Shadow and Bone trilogy and put them in charge of a country that is about to be invaded. A threat has also been gathering that the young king's gift for the impossible will not be enough to answer.