Twenty years ago, the Marchioness of Harwood held all the Great Empires of the Sea and Continent hostage to her will. A student of the Great Libraries who had mastered the infernal magicks in tomes thought extinct, she could wrench the life from men with her gaze and open portals to the furnace of Hell in the midst of armies. Finally thrown down by an alliance of the entire world, the Marchioness has become but a dark legend told by its peoples, save for the wizards who first taught her. Now, some of those wizards are returning to her benighted island to delve into her secrets. They have enlisted the swords of some mercenaries who are unprepared for what they will discover...
Luisa of Portio lived like every other orphan cast into the street who ever saw adulthood -- she survived. Clever enough to work on a ship but too bold to remain on one, she spent her childhood in every great port of the Continent. When she was old enough to pack powder, her life as a soldier began. Quick of eye and wit and foot, she cut a fair living for herself as a mercenary scout and privateer hand. And so now that wizards of the Great Libraries have come asking pointedly for her Captain to help them rummage through an unholy ruin, she does not ask why. Only how much coin...