Change is coming for Amalina Dalca.

 

Posing as a mannered and charming -- and wealthy --- countess from the east, Amalina has been moving through the western courts, making fast friends with the ladies-of-title eager for novelty and excitement. But this ambassador from the exotic Ardeel mountainlands has also created a wider stir of interest within elite high society circles; some of their reactions are not what Amalina would have expected ... or wanted.

 

And: As much as Amalina enjoys her new noble life, it is near impossible to resist the old one back home. She must always return to her country, to her master's castle. Return to its many unpredictable dangers. But then she begins to wonder, must it always be this way?

 

So: Weaving through a gauntlet of family, friends, and guests, barely a step ahead of the law, a new revolutionary movement, and a deadly conspiracy against her, Amalina begins the difficult steps to free herself from the all-powerful creature she works for, so she can finally have a life that is truly all her own!