Failures of Four Kingdoms

“The Daughters of Izdihar” meets “The Foxglove King”, An ex-soothsayer and stranded scholar of curses upend a Utopian community that has no love for refugees. Radiant Basket of Rainbow Shells, scholar of curses and magical history, has spent several years on a research expedition abroad in Quruscan, one of the four kingdoms of the Tetrarchia. When Tetrarchia and Radiant's home country of Loasht suddenly revoke their tenuous peace, Quruscan is no longer the safe haven for Radiant that it once was. He needs someone to help him escape: a bodyguard, perhaps, or someone with the sheer cunning to escort him to safety. The perfect candidate is Kalyna Aljosanova: a crafty, mysterious mercenary with an uncanny reputation. But the political situation in Loasht is far more volatile and dangerous than Radiant left it; it soon becomes clear that he may never be able to return home to his family. With a little of Kalyna's signature guile, she finds Radiant asylum in a utopian community on the border between Loasht and the Tetrarchia, and, for a moment, it seems like they might finally have a safe place to stay. But when the group's charismatic leader grows wary of the refugees flocking to his community, and suspicious of Kalyna in particular-that sense of safety begins to unravel once more. “Kalyna the Cutthroat” deftly imagines how the pressures of heroism can warp even the most unshakeable of survivors, asking what responsibilities human beings have to one another, and whether one good deed, of any magnitude, can absolve you of your past for the sake of a future.

A plucky, sardonic con artist must "prophesize" her way out of peril- discovering along the way that power and politics are nothing more than the stories sold as truth. Kalyna's family has the Gift: the ability to see the future. For generations, they traveled the four kingdoms of the Tetrarchia selling their services as soothsayers. Every child of their family is born with this Gift-everyone except Kalyna. So far, Kalyna has used informants and trickery to falsify prophecies for coin, scrounging together a living for her deteriorating father and cruel grandmother. But Kalyna's reputation for prophecy precedes her, and poverty turns to danger when she is pressed into service by the spymaster to Rotfelsen. Kalyna is to use her "Gift" to uncover threats against Rotfelsen's king, her family held hostage to ensure her good behavior. But politics are devious; the king's enemies abound, and Kalyna's skills for investigation and deception are tested to the limit. Worse, the conspiracy she uncovers points to a larger threat, not only to Rotfelsen but to the Tetrarchia itself. Kalyna is determined to protect her family and newfound friends, but as she is drawn deeper into palace intrigue, she can no longer tell if her manipulations are helping prevent the Tetrarchia's destruction-or if her lies will bring about its prophesized downfall.