Nira Darhmar was born to inherit an army on a world where war had become tradition. Instead, she abandoned her title, accepted exile, and crossed the stars in search of a life that belonged to her.

Now stranded by choice on a less advanced world, she travels with a troupe of entertainers, turning the lethal war dances of her homeland into performances of beauty, discipline, and barely restrained violence.

Quiet, cold, and difficult to read, Nira is a natural dominant with a taste for control, pain, fear, and defiance. She is drawn to capable people who refuse to bend easily—and takes exquisite pleasure in discovering exactly what will make them break.

To earn her attention is dangerous.

To keep it may be worse.