A thrall's luck turns the night he's forced into his master's mistress's bed — with his master's wife watching. Corin is the lowest thing in the Marquis of Ashvale's house: a stable thrall, sold for the price of a mule, sleeping in the straw on two hundred copper a month. He knows the rules. He knows exactly what happens to a servant who lays a finger on what belongs to his betters. Then the lady of the house arrives to catch her husband in a kept woman's bed — and the husband dives under it, leaving Corin to take his place between the sheets. The lady knows. The lady makes him prove it. By the time she leaves, Corin is carrying a secret he can never tell, a woman he can't abandon, and a new errand from his master: seduce the lady herself, and bring back proof. He was promised a grand adventure. He got something considerably warmer. One peerless beauty at a time, a stable thrall climbs out of the muck of Valdria — all the way to its War Saint.