The story begins like this: he’s bored and she’s lonely.

Roran Garrowsson, called Stronghammer, has been king for nine years that have seemed like minutes. He talks politics like a pro, can fake convincing smiles or cry real tears depending on which the occasion demands, and he knows how to dance and which fork to use.

Inside, though, he’s still the farmer’s son who talked crops, said what he meant, and owned only one fork—the kind he used on haystacks.

Katrina, as it turns out, does not make a good queen. To her credit, she would’ve been a great farmer’s wife—cooking, cleaning, and producing enough sons to run a farm without hired help. But she has no head for politics, no real intelligence or social skills or even good sense, and Roran sees less and less of her as the years wear on. She spends most of her time in the nursery chasing his brats (of which he now has five: three boys, Cadoc, Garron, and Andrin; and two girls, Cara and Ismira), and court gossip calls her “quiet” and “eccentric,” nicknaming her the Recluse Queen. They don’t even share a bed anymore, although their rooms adjoin. Most nights he finds it too much effort to go over to her side.

Enter Birgit Mardrasdaughter, called Lady Shrrg by her affectionate underlings. As reward for her support in the war of ten years ago, the newly crowned king set her as ruler over Tierm, the diamond in the Broddring Kingdom’s crown. It’s a bustling seaport full of merchants who can more than afford to pay generous taxes—at least, once the pirates mysteriously vanished, a happy turn of fate that people tried not to question. If Birgit and a select crew of privateers were not to be found for several months preceding that disappearance, no one who noticed said anything. And if Lady Shrrg came back from her ruling hiatus with more battle scars than she set out with—well, her rule was so fair and her bodyguards so large that people kept their mouths shut about that too.

Birgit’s battle scars were as follows: numerous healed scrapes, bruises, and scratches; five tender welts across her upper back that, in time, faded to pink lines; a flower-shaped tattoo across her hipbone, which is now misshapen due to stretch marks; a deep scar that barely missed her left eye and stretched from her temple to the corner of her mouth; two piercings in each ear, in which she wore gold hoops and dangling ruby drops; and a decided swelling of the abdomen, which produced, five months later, a red-haired girl-child named Robin.

Having no time (or possibly no desire) to care for her daughter, she sent Robin away to live with her son Nolfavrell. At that time he was nineteen and betrothed; his fiancé, fortunately, was a very understanding girl, though that may have had something to do with the fact that Nolfavrell had just been named governor of Gil’ead.

Her other two children—a daughter, Maris, and a son, Brook—had just turned fourteen and twelve, respectively. They, too, had gone to live with Nolfavrell, due to their mother’s extended absence, and it was Maris who ended up with the task of raising Robin.

Maris is twenty now. Robin is six, and Brook is dead, killed in a riding accident at the age of sixteen. Nolfavrell’s wife Hester is expecting Birgit’s second grandchild.

It is partially because of them that Birgit decides, at the ripe old age of thirty-nine, to stray from her comfortable town-house in Tierm. Though she likes keeping a constant watch on her city (knowing that people are only good, honest citizens if they know someone’s keeping an eye on them), it gets lonely without a family around her. Sure, she has the city council to talk to every sevenday, but they all want something, which makes talking to them exhausting. And her neighbors are her friends, kind of—the nice old sea captain’s widow who obsessively tends her wilting garden, and the merchant’s mistress who has her over for tea every now and then. But they’re not family.

So she packs up her court gowns (unused for many years, now a bit tight around the waist), buys presents for her children and grandchildren, asks the widow to feed her cats, and sets out on a tour. From Tierm to Gil’ead, and from Gil’ead to Ilirea, to end her visit by paying her dues to a king she only speaks to in letters.

King Roran thinks she has forgotten her vow of revenge ten years ago. He thinks that his gift of a city governorship has paid her off. He is wrong. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and Birgit has had nine years to perfect her recipe.