With most of her family dead, slaughtered in brutal attacks aimed at destroying the Vatta interstellar shipping empire, Kylara Vatta struggles to rebuild her family business and recruit allies to strike back against a fleet of pirates.

Kylara Vatta has one final opportunity to muster the forces to destroy forever her enemy's power and to restore her family's name.

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE DEED OF PAKSENARRION

Paksenarrion was the finest paladin her world would ever see. But Paksenarrion could never have become a fighter at all had it not been for he who had come before: Gird, the liberator, who taught his people that they could fight—and win—against their Mage-Born rulers.

And after Gird came one more: Luap, Gird's sworn follower and the king's half-breed bastard. Riven by internal

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"After nearly a decade away, Nebula Award-winning author Elizabeth Moon makes a triumphant return to science fiction with a thrilling new series featuring the daring hero of her acclaimed Vatta's War sequence. Summoned to the home planet of her family's business empire, space-fleet commander Kylara Vatta is told to expect a hero's welcome. But instead, she is thrown into danger unlike any other she has faced and finds herself isolated, unable to communicate...

As Kieri Phelan ascends a throne he never sought, he must come to terms with his own half-elven heritage while protecting his new kingdom from his old enemies. Meanwhile, in Tsaia, Prince Mikeli escapes an assassination attempt made by the Verrakaien magelords. As dark forces gather against the two kings and their worlds, even Paks may find her gods-given magic and peerless fighting skills stretched to the limit--and beyond.

With peace restored in the kingdoms of Tsaia and Lyonya, the newly crowned kings Mikeli and Kieri face trouble in keeping their thrones due to threats from an ex-pirate, an aggressive kingdom to the north, and corrupt magical forces.

A re-emergence of magic after centuries of absence sparks brutal pogroms throughout the Eight Kingdoms, pitting a group of resolute heroes against the machinations of a vicious traitor.

"Acclaimed author Elizabeth Moon spins gripping, richly imagined epic fantasy novels that have earned comparisons to the work of such authors as Robin Hobb and Lois McMaster Bujold. In this volume, Moon's brilliant masterwork reaches its triumphant conclusion. The mysterious reappearance of magery throughout the land has been met with suspicion, fear, and violence. In the kingdom of Lyonya, Kieri, the half-elven, half-human king, struggles to balance...