The Crows Beneath the Crown

A nobleman floats dead in moonlight, his pale silk drifting across a garden reflecting pool, and the woman who finds him carries a truth far more dangerous than murder. Nereida Vashen came to the garden to escape the suffocating politics of the imperial court, but what she discovers there pulls her back into the dangerous web she and her brother Corin have spent years trying to untangle. Their father, Lord Halrek Vashen, once stood close to power; now he watches his family circle the drain of court intrigue while Emperor Aldric Solvaine consolidates his rule and Prince Sable Solvaine sharpens his appetite for war. Whispers speak of The Benefactor, a masked figure moving money, soldiers, and secrets beyond the throne's reach, and of The Patient One's high priestess, whose quiet devotion hides a blade waiting for the right throat. As the corpse draws allies like Lord Cassian Areneth and outcasts like the thief Quill and the scarred soldier Tovin Drell into Nereida's orbit, even Princess Iola of the Outer Reaches begins to question where her loyalties truly lie. The court wants the killing solved. The killer wants the truth buried. And Nereida is running out of places to hide the secrets her family can no longer afford to keep.