Contending with the lives of her loved ones in danger, assassination attempts, and a new stranger she can't quite trust, Empress Redemptor Tarisai must decide if she is willing to die for justice--or to live for it.

Mirage has returned to Coeur d'Or, triumphant in battle, and ready to claim her rightful place as the Amber Empress, and resume her tentative romance with Sunder; but the city's people are afraid and not welcoming, somebody is trying to assassinate her, the previous empress, Severine, is in a coma and not as dead as Mirage would wish, and a distant cousin Gavin d'Ars has turned up with a rival claim to the throne--and in the turmoil all her alliances...

It has always been Eda's dream to become empress, no matter the cost. Haunted by her ambition and selfishness, she's convinced that the only way to achieve her goal is to barter with the gods. But all requests come with a price and Eda bargains away the soul of her best friend in exchange for the crown. Years later, her hold on the empire begins to crumble and her best friend unexpectedly grows sick and dies. Gnawed by guilt and betrayal, Eda embarks...

Raised in the Dusklands where her power to create illusions was regarded as a curse, Sylvie has traveled to Coeur d'Or, where the Amber Empress, the cruel Severine, rules in hopes of finding her legacy--but the court is full of dark secrets and deadly intrigues, and Sylvie, now renamed Mirage, must learn to hone her magic, and find her way past the enmity of the empress to claim the place that is hers by right of birth.