Part of Series
The Protector is dead. For fifty years, the Protector ruled, reshaping her country in her image and driving her enemies to the corners of the map. For half a century the world turned around her as she built her armies, trained her Tensors, and grasped at the reins of fate itself. Now she is dead. Her followers will quiver, her enemies rejoice. But in one tavern, deep in rebel territory, her greatest enemy drowns her sorrows. Lady Han raised a movement that sought the Protector's head, yet now she can only mourn her loss. She remembers how it all began, when the Protector was young, not yet crowned, and a desperate dancing girl dared to fall in love with her.
Author
Neon Yang, formerly J.Y. Yang, is a Singaporean writer of English-language speculative fiction. Yang is non-binary and queer, and uses they/them pronouns. Yang has written a series of "silkpunk" novellas, and has published short fiction since 2012. Their novella The Black Tides of Heaven was nominated for the 2017 Nebula Award for Best Novella, the 2018 Kitschies Golden Tentacle and the 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novella. Yang's work revolves around "the human body as a vessel for storytelling", and is based on their background as a molecular biologist, journalist and science communicator.
