"Magic has broken free over the Twelve Kingdoms. The population is beset by shapeshifters and portents, landscapes that migrate, uncanny allies who are not quite human, and enemies eager to take advantage of the chaos. Dafne Mailloux is no adventurer--she's a librarian. But the High Queen trusts Dafne's ability with languages, her way of winnowing the useful facts from a dusty scroll, and even more important, the subtlety and guile that three decades...

Karyn of Hardie behaved like a proper Dasnarian wife. She acquiesced, she accepted, she submitted. Until her husband gave her a choice: their loveless, unconsummated royal marriage or her freedom. Karyn chose freedom. But with nowhere to run except into the arms of Dasnaria's enemies, she wonders if she's made a mistake. She wants love, security, a family. She can't image finding any of it among the mercurial Tala. Worst of all is Zyr. The uninhibited...