This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.

Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky.

Listener discretion advised.

Hey, this is Dana Schwartz.

Just one quick personal note before we begin today's episode.

I have a new book coming out. It is called

The Arcane Arts. And I wrote it, but it's actually by S.D. Coverly for two reasons. One, because I

co-wrote it with a friend of mine, alternating chapters. I did the female point of view. He did the

male point of view. and also because my last books

were young adult, and this one is a little sexier. So if you are a younger or teenage reader,

this might not be the book for you, and I wanted to differentiate that. But if you are at all

interested in a story about a graduate student and a professor delving into secret

forbidden magic at a grad school, please, please look into the book. And if you can, it would

mean the world to me if you could pre-order. Pre-orders are kind of the number one thing you can do

to help authors. It just shows publishers that people care about this book. So the book is

the arcane arts. If you could pre-order and you're a fan of me and a fan of my writing,

it would mean the world. Let's get into today's episode.

The stakes were so high that as the hours passed, even a sacred shrine started to feel like a cramped cage.

Idia had been hiding in a hallowed grove within the highest-ranking chief's palace in Benin City,

since her son, Essigda had been crowned the ruler of the

Edo people, or the Oba. It should have been a time of joyous celebration. Following years of planning

and the death of the previous Oba, Ozu Lua, in 1504,

...