Secrets lie across the seas.Heir Ruarnon seeks allies to free their parents from unpredictable sorcerer-king Nartzeer. The reclusive Urai are not who they had in mind but can offer far more than Ruarnon anticipates. However, negotiations are interrupted when Nartzeer's murderous grey-hided damars are sighted sailing towards Tarlah.The damars' human handlers are lost Vietnamese-Aussie Linh's chance to confirm that her gateway home —and sorcerers able (and hopefully willing) to operate it— lie in the dangerous West.When Linh sets sail to confront the handlers, she learns that magic is very much still wielded on Umarinaris. That some of the Sorcery War's deadliest weapons survived. And that Nartzeer somehow knows all of this and has his own plans for those weapons.

All roads lead to war.Nonbinary Ruarnon is determined to prove their worth as heir to Tarlah's perfect King. But when their parents are abducted, Ruarnon must rule Tarlah in the face of unreliable allies, a brutal expansionist neighbour, and binary male warriors who doubt the lead of a bookish enby youth.Neighbouring King Kyura faces opposition, as peace-loving ruler of warmongering subjects who dream of expanding their empire. Ruarnon is vulnerable in the absence of their allies, but when Kyura rejects calls to conquer Tarlah once and for all, assassins threaten his family and mutiny threatens his reign.Trapped in Ruarnon's world, Linh is desperate to return to her family in Australia, and isn't above using her host’s belief that she's a figure from local myth to achieve it. But her gateway home lies on the far side of a brewing war, and her only transport is Ruarnon’s absent allies, sailing to Tarlah’s aid.A new breed of creature threatens them all: a plague of monsters sailing towards Kyura and Ruarnon’s lands. Linh’s monster observations could save Kyura and Ruarnon’s people, ending the war between them, and clearing Linh’s homeward path. But the strategy’s price is dear; Linh must risk her life aiding Ruarnon. And to secure peace with Kyura’s unruly subjects, Ruarnon’s ultimate test as heir risks betrayal and Tarlah’s bloody defeat.