Having secured Selbis, Faer'Owyn, known as Queen Blade of Selbis, turns her attention outward to extend her power. Her father's next message to her tells of the Owyn House's selling of valuable family heirlooms to a group of Corsairs twenty years ago in return for securing passage away from Keria in the doomed civil war.

Faer, or Dark Blade as she is also known, must recover these heirlooms, but this means gaining access to the forbidding Black Island, the lair of the corsairs, and this is considered impossible.

But this isn't the only other problem she has. Selbis itself is under attack from monsters of the swamp surrounding it, and in addition to that, her proclamation as Empress of Narok has earned the enmity of the kingdoms to the south-west. War with these kingdoms would seem to be inevitable.

So Faer must move quickly to gain the artefacts, but knowing how to get there means she will have to travel to the desert city of Thezalb, where women are slaves, and therefore she will have to make herself the play-thing of her former lover Henac and hope he stays faithful to her plans.