A Tale Told By Traitors

by Renee Dugan

Lionyra Vara has spent years building a quiet life as a baker in the port city of Krylan, and hiding, badly enough that it finally catches up with her: the woman hunting her is Lucretzia Nore, the Del’s Own Blade, and the truth Lucretzia drags to the surface is that “Lionyra” is really Alyona Graven, the long-lost heir to the throne of Amere-Del, being hauled home to be married off to a dissident leader as a political peace offering. Aboard the ship carrying her back, she strikes up an easy, unplanned friendship with a deckhand named Bastyan, who turns out to be Ryker Kassian, a pirate captain sailing under a false name specifically to claim her as ransom. What follows is a bargain struck between captor and captive: Lionyra will help Ryker double his payday if he helps her first find Tristah, the decoy and true sister-in-arms she left behind years ago, before Lucretzia can use her as leverage instead.

The search for Tristah pulls both of them through a pirate stronghold built on debt and cruelty, a city simmering with a rebellion led by a masked figure called the Incendiary, and eventually into open war with the Old Salts who profit from misery on every side of Amere-Del’s civil unrest. Loyalties shift, disguises come apart, and by the time the trail leads back to the throne itself, the question isn’t only whether Lionyra can save the people she’s come to love. It’s whether the woman she used to be, and the throne she was born into, will let her go.

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