Set in the tumultuous, magical history of the Phoenix Feather quartet...

How did scholarly, modest Lan Renti, lowest ranking of the troubled imperial clan, rise to become the Sage Empress, first woman ruler in the long history of the Empire of a Thousand Isles? Aware of how the official records embellish (or sidestep) the truth, she's determined to set the record straight. In this first volume, she begins with her life in the imperial palace until the catastrophic injustice that flung her as a young teen into the dangerous world of the Warring Princes, seeking her missing brother. Secret identities, a talking sword, and a friendship that might become something more, land her outside the law as a gallant wanderer. Only, what happens when "the law" becomes increasingly unjust? Ren grapples with that question as her first mission, supposedly simple, becomes fraught with wide-ranging consequences...