The Cost of Truth: Book Three of In Those Days There Was No King (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798181475113)

Peace has borne life.

Now truth must bring it into the light.

Mahlah, daughter of Abner, has chosen Shua as her husband - not because the elders of Israel declared it, not because Benjamin required it, and not because the taking was ever made right. She has chosen him freely, after the long work of truth, restraint, repentance, and mercy.

But the child growing within her cannot remain hidden in the hills.

Shiloh must know.

Her father must know.

And Abishua, son of Neriah, must return to the house of the woman he once took and stand beneath the judgment of those who loved her first.

For Shua, the road to Shiloh is a road into truth. He cannot undo the vineyard. He cannot repay the dance, the white linen, the mother's hands, the father's peace, or the life Mahlah lost. All he can do is stand before her family without excuse and bear what righteousness requires.

For Mahlah, the road home is no less costly. She returns not as the girl who vanished from the festival, but as a woman changed by grief, survival, love, and choice. She must face the family that mourned her, the village that remembers the wound, and the hard mercy of telling the truth without surrendering the life now growing inside her.

As Shiloh reckons with what was done, a child is born who bears witness to what mercy can become. And when the road turns back toward Benjamin, Shua and Mahlah must decide what kind of household can be built in a land broken by violence, pride, and fear.

The Cost of Truth is the final volume of In Those Days There Was No King - a biblical historical novel of judgment and mercy, family and restoration, and the costly truth that wounds must be named before they can be healed.