The Blizzard and the Sieve

Casimir Marime is a failed carpenter's apprentice whose only refuge from shame is a sacred grove cultivated by rumor. When the capital's army invades his village to find and exploit it, the tenderhearted boy is caught and, in an act of mercy, becomes his home's first executioner.
How will Casimir protect his grove and village from the capital's disgraced former executioner Konrad Soln and his savage labyrinth of duty and deceit?
Can he reconcile his missing masterpiece with his family's new legacy before a conspiracy to abolish the executioner's blade severs the veil of his reality?