When Taltaz, the merchant of Gethlem, makes his next trek through the Bladeshales to deliver the Priests of Imlach their regular shipment, he brings with him a new type of ware—a thief captured and condemned in Vereling Town for her crimes.

Perhaps Rahlizje of Holjstruke was too sure of herself. Perhaps she's become lazy. Perhaps she wanted to be caught. As she fights the merchant of Gethlem every step of the way, his prisoner and his salvation, a world she never fathomed reveals itself. And it's darker than anything she's survived thus far with nothing but her wits and a knife and a few false charms.

Yuhltse pays the man handsomely for the woman she means to make her handmaiden—her assistant—and finds much more in Rahlizje than the price she paid to own a thief. But even the most powerful High Priestess of Arahaz is not blind to the fact that she may have just purchased her own undoing.