Hylas has come to the island of Tykanos to build an aqueduct. He is not interested in the island’s main attraction: the pleasure houses where polished courtesans both female and male serve tea and elegant conversation. Until he finds himself renting a room in one of the tea houses and meeting his neighbour, the courtesan Zo.Over breakfasts in Zo’s garden, the two men strike up a friendship that transforms the isolation of their lives. But Hylas’s aqueduct project is threatened by b...

A month ago, eunuch sword-dancer and spy Varazda collided with ex-soldier Damiskos at a seaside villa during a dizzying week of intrigue, assassinations, and a fake love affair that—maybe—turned real. Now Varazda is back home in Boukos, at the centre of a family and community he dearly loves, and Damiskos is coming to visit.Things aren’t going according to plan.Varazda’s family members suspect Damiskos’s motives. Varazda grapples with his own desires. Add in a horrible goos...

Five years ago, Damiskos’s brilliant military career was cut short, leaving him with a permanent disability and scars that are not all physical. Adrift and still grieving, he tries to find meaning in an unsatisfying job.Work takes him to the remote seaside villa of an old friend, where, among an odd assortment of guests, he meets the eunuch sword-dancer Varazda. Enigmatic and beautiful but distinctly prickly, Varazda is the antithesis of the straightforward and serious Damiskos. Ye...

They met on a battlefield and saved each other’s lives. It’s not the way enemies-to-lovers usually works.Adares comes from a civilization of democracy and indoor plumbing. Rus belongs to a tribe of tattooed, semi-nomadic horse-breeders. They meet in the aftermath of battle, when Rus saves Adares’s life, and Adares returns the favour. As they shelter in an abandoned temple, a friendship neither of them could have imagined grows into a mutual attraction.But R...

On a night when the whole city is looking for love, two foreigners find it in the last place they expected.The riotous Psobion festival is about to begin in the city of Boukos, and the ambassador from the straightlaced kingdom of Zash has gone missing. Ex-soldier Marzana, captain of the embassy guard, and the ambassador’s secretary, the shrewd and urbane eunuch Bedar, are the only two who know.Marzana still nurses the pain of an old heartbreak, and Bedar ha...

Newly freed from enslavement, Nikias is making a life for himself in the bustling city of Pheme, working at a snack stand, drinking with a group of anti-slavery radicals, and pining for the beautiful law clerk next door. When he sees his crush attacked in the street by an outraged ex-client, it seems it’s finally Nikias’s chance to be the hero.Kallion doesn’t need a rescue. What he really needs is a skewer of octopus fritters (with extra sauce) and a friend. Nikias can supply both,...

Retired soldier Damiskos and his lover Varazda have been living together in Boukos for a month, and their future is beginning to look bright. Then Damiskos receives a letter summoning him home to Pheme—where his parents are deeply in debt, his brother is being hunted by loan sharks, and an unwanted arranged marriage looms.And that’s before Damiskos is charged with murder.Fortunately, he’s not alone. Old friends are back in Pheme. And Varazda—eunuch, sword-dancer, a...

In a lonely fortress with no way in or out lives the beaten hero of the Western Mountains, imprisoned by his enemies. Up the mountain one spring comes a young assassin to be his bride. But nothing goes according to plan.Lill is clear about his mission and well prepared by his training. He knows Vanu Urártu is a monster who deserves death, and he has the skills, honed by his brutal upbringing, to deliver that death. The part where he has to become a pleasing spouse before killing hi...

Lill went up the mountain to marry Vanu and make himself a widow in the name of vengeance. But when he came down from the Spring Pass, he left Vanu alive. Now he is trying to piece together a life without the man he loves—because of course he has no intention of ever seeing Vanu again. Absolutely not. What would be the point, when Vanu knows the truth and must hate the thought of him?