A fantastical game of political intrigue played by a fraud, where the grumpy snark of K. S. Villosos The Wolf of Oren-Yaro meets a rich Eastern Europeaninflected world akin to Ava Reids The Wolf and the Woodsman.

A plucky, sardonic con artist must prophesize her way out of peril discovering along the way that the keys to power and politics are nothing more than the stories that we can sell as truth.

Kalynas family has the Gift: the ability to see the future. For generations, they traveled the four kingdoms of the Tetrarchia selling their services as soothsayers. Every child of their family is born with this Gifteveryone except Kalyna.

So far, Kalyna has used informants and trickery to falsify prophecies for coin, scrounging together a living for her deteriorating father and cruel grandmother. But Kalynas reputation for prophecy precedes her, and poverty turns to danger when she is pressed into service by the spymaster to Rotfelsen.

Kalyna is to use her Gift to uncover threats against Rotfelsens king, her family held hostage to ensure her good behavior. But politics are devious; the kings enemies abound, and Kalynas skills for investigation and deception are tested to the limit. Worse, the conspiracy she uncovers points to a larger threat, not only to Rotfelsen but to the Tetrarchia itself.

Kalyna is determined to protect her family and newfound friends, but as she is drawn deeper into palace intrigue, she can no longer tell if her manipulations are helping prevent the Tetrarchias destructionor if her lies will bring about its prophesized downfall.