For three years, Tristan has survived by reading rooms — knowing what to sing, when to leave, and how not to be remembered. A traveling minstrel on the road is nobody, and nobody is safest.Then he hums four notes of a lullaby in a dark alley and two armed men walk away.Something is waking up in him, and a band of investigators tracking a lost Strayan artifact believe they know what it is. What follows is a journey through taverns, ruins, and ancient stone circles — told in a world where magic is performance.The Minstrel's Shadow is the first book in the Dark Bard series by A. Jari Wolff.