SKIRMISH

The Terafin lies dead.

No head of a House expects to die peacefully in bed. But the Terafin’s death was at the hands of a demon, in the presence of the Twin Kings, the magi, and the House Council. The Terafin’s assassination is therefore of concern to the whole of the Empire.

House Terafin is without a ruler for the first time since Jewel Markess crossed its threshold. No one intends that it should remain that way, and four members of the House Council have been planning their own ascendance for months—or years.

But the Terafin chose her heir. Jewel Markess swore, in secret, that she would take and hold the House upon the Terafin’s death; it was the only condition upon which the Terafin would allow her to head to the South in the wake of the Kings’ armies.

Summoned home—at great cost—Jewel has left the war in the Dominion, with its multiple armies and demonic enemies, behind. But she now faces a house divided, and a far more personal war.

The battlefield is House Terafin itself.

The stakes are everything she has ever loved.