Kalyna the Cutthroat

The Daughters of Izdihar meets The Foxglove King: An ex-soothsayer and stranded scholar of curses upenda 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 researchexpedition abroad in Quruscan, one of the four kingdoms of theTetrarchia. When Tetrarchia and Radiant’s homecountry of Loasht suddenly revoke their tenuous peace, Quruscan is no longer the safe haven for Radiant that itonce was. He needs someone to help him escape: a bodyguard, perhaps, or someone with the sheer cunningto escort him to safety. The perfect candidate is Kalyna Aljosanova: a crafty, mysterious mercenary with anuncanny reputation.But the political situation in Loasht is far more volatile and dangerous than Radiant left it; it soon becomes clearthat he may never be able to return home to his family. With a little of Kalyna’s signature guile, she finds Radiantasylum in a utopian community on the border between Loasht and the Tetrarchia, and, for a moment, it seemslike they might finally have a safe place to stay. But when the group’s charismatic leader grows wary of therefugees flocking to his community—and suspicious of Kalyna in particular—that sense of safety begins tounravel once more.Kalyna the Cutthroat deftly imagines how the pressures of heroism can warp even the most unshakeable ofsurvivors, asking what responsibilities human beings have to one another, and whether one good deed—ofany magnitude—can absolve you of your past for the sake of a future.