Fireheart Tiger

Thanh is a princess of Binh Hai. As a child she was taken to Ephteria, a more powerful nation, and kept at its royal court as a political hostage. During those years she fell in love with Eldris, a charismatic member of that court.

Years later, Thanh is back home and Ephteria is tightening its hold on her country. Trade and old promises are the tools: exclusive rights for Ephterian merchants, then a military presence in the capital. Thanh is pulled two ways. Her mother has ambitions of her own, and Eldris returns with fresh demands presented as affection.

Neither of them, Thanh comes to see, has the interests of Binh Hai or of Thanh herself at heart. Her one honest connection is Giang, a palace servant who keeps secrets of her own. Giang gives Thanh a kind of plain dealing she has not had before, and helps her find the resolve to choose another future.

This is fantasy built on politics and personal ties, following one woman as a love affair and a foreign power's pressure on her homeland become the same problem. Thanh is the focus throughout. The tension comes from who can be trusted, with a sapphic romance developing alongside it.