In her first trial by fire, Cordelia Naismith captained a
throwaway ship of the Betan Expeditionary Force on a
mission to destroy an enemy armada. Discovering deception
within deception, treachery within treachery, she was
forced into a separate peace with her chief opponent, Lord
Aral Vorkosigan—he who was called "The Butcher of Komarr"—
and would consequently become an outcast on her own planet
and the Lady Vorkosigan on his.
Sick of combat and betrayal, she was ready to settle down
to a quiet life, interrupted only by the occasional
ceremonial appearances required of the Lady Vorkosigan.
But when the Emperor died, Aral became guardian of the
infant heir to the imperial throne of Barrayar—and the
target of high-tech assassins in a dynastic civil war that
was reminiscent of Earth's Middle Ages, but fought with up-
to-the-minute biowar technology. Neither Aral nor Cordelia
guessed the part that their cell-damaged unborn would play
in Barrayari's bloody legacy.