Everywhere he looks, 15-year-old Urmillian sees his people suffering under brutal foreign occupation. High taxes drive poverty and malnutrition, while the execution of anyone suspected of resistance has the people of Tarlah on their knees. Urmillian longs to join his father's uprising and free his people, despite father's orders to protect the family home. When occupying soldiers turn on the Tarlahans, Urmillian's younger brother calls for aid. But the streets are filling with soldiers. If Urmillian doesn't help cut them off, the city will be overrun. So he risks both their lives by abandoning his household's defence and joining his older sister on the front line. An action-packed YA Fantasy short story (7500 words), set before and prequel to Manipulator's War, without spoilers, so both books can be enjoyed in any reading order.

All roads lead to war. Nonbinary Ruarnon is determined to prove their worth as heir to Tarlah's perfect King. Things get complicated when their parents are abducted and they're left ruling Tarlah in the shadow of impending war, with absent allies. Neighbouring King Kyura has no intention of invading Tarlah. But his warmongering subjects long for the glory of expansion. When Kyura rejects their calls for war, assassins threaten his family and mutiny threatens his reign. Stranded Aussie Linh is desperate to return to her family in Australia. But the only transport to her gateway home is Ruarnon’s absent allies, sailing to Tarlah’s aid. Monsters at sea threaten everyone. Linh’s monster observations could save Kyura’s people, and clear her homeward path. If she risks her life aiding Ruarnon. But to secure peace with Kyura’s unruly subjects, Ruarnon’s ultimate test as heir risks betrayal and Tarlah’s bloody defeat.

Secrets lie across the seas. Heir Ruarnon seeks allies to free their parents from unpredictable sorcerer-king Nartzeer. The reclusive Urai are not who they had in mind but can offer far more than Ruarnon anticipates. However, negotiations are interrupted when Nartzeer's murderous grey-hided damars are sighted sailing towards Tarlah. The damars' human handlers are lost Aussie Linh's chance to confirm that her gateway home—and sorcerers able (and hopefully willing) to operate it—lie in the dangerous West. When Linh sets sail to confront the handlers, she learns that magic is very much still wielded on Umarinaris. That some of the Sorcery War's deadliest weapons survived. And that Nartzeer somehow knows all of this, and has his own plans for those weapons. But is Nartzeer the villain everyone in the East believes? What do his fleets truly seek in the Eastern Seas? And why have the damars become so formidable that they threaten to sink Ruarnon's ship and overrun all of Ruarnon's potential allies?