Lt. Katya Cassius and her team rush to break the Serva syndicate’s trafficking operations to rescue children who have fallen into Serva’s grasp. In the midst of chasing phantoms, Katya finds herself caring for a young girl who’s been sneaking onto her base. The promise she makes her will forever shape their lives.

This Heritage Verse story takes place prior to Heritage Lost chronologically.

One simple rescue mission. That’s all it takes to land Katya and her two-person crew in the midst of a cover-up with the discovery of the Magistrate warship Aletheia‘s slaughtered crew — save for one survivor, an Oneiroi toddler. Despite the species’ reputation as the Magistrate’s mind-destroying enforcers, Katya rescues him. This act of mercy only ends with her own comrades in arms turning their weapons on her ship.

Don’t mess with the dead. Pure common sense. Necromancy gets messy — yet when pitted against Berit Gyllen . . . something or other . . . Svein is the only one wallowing in the filth when his artifact retrieval mission for the Mothers goes sideways. Perhaps he should have listened when that blasted bird told him to run.