Winner of the Lesfic Bard Award for Fantasy!

Fighting for her kingdom is her duty. Fighting for those she loves is in her blood.

You are invited to enter Ar'rothi, a world as vividly realized as Narnia or Middle Earth, a world where animal spirits guide humans towards enlightenment, and in which a warrior duchess and a disgraced princess must join forces against an evil that threatens everything they have learned to love.

Aurelia "Bree" Makena, the Duchess of Danforth, waits on a beach near Port Emnal in front of her three thousand troops. As the waves lap against the hooves of her battle mare, Lioth, Bree watches the enemy ships deploying more warriors against her than she'd ever thought possible. Victory may prove an insurmountable task.

Soon enough, however, she discovers that wrestling victory from defeat in this battle is just the beginning. Because the landing force is only a diversion for the real attack—one that if successful, will defeat her Anacafrian king more surely than an arrow driven through his heart.