Chief Magistrate Lela of the House of Asheema is truth and wisdom incarnate or so she proclaims the day she is inducted into the Council of Magistrates, the ruling government of her homeworld. Charged with assisting the regent negotiate a peace treaty between warring planets, Lela is determined to prove she is worthy of ruling alongside chief magistrates thirty years her senior. But when the peace talks turn deadly, Lela’s mission shifts from negotiating reconciliation to capturing dangerous mercenaries. Lela must uncover the truth in a miasma of lies. Who hired the mercenaries to assassinate the peace delegates and why? Who else is in danger? Can Lela and her security team stop the culprits before more lives are lost? The path laid out for Lela is one she is not yet prepared to walk. But leaders are rarely born or the circumstances of their ascension ideal. Blood. Pain. War.