After proving herself in battle, Esmay Suiza is continuing her RSS Fleet training alongside her erstwhile love Barin when she meets Brun—the ebullient daughter of Lord Thornbuckle—who idolizes her as a reluctant hero. But Esmay cannot abide Brun’s highborn airs. And when their shared affection for Barin ignites a rivalry between them, Esmay is exiled to remote duty. Crushed by the rebuke of her friendship, Brun leaves the facility—and enters a nightmare.

For the enemies of civilization are on the move. The savage New Texas Militia, driven to spread their fanatical dogma, has been stealing the Familias government’s own weaponry to use against them. When Brun accidentally witnesses their depredations, her life is all but forfeit. Taken by the Militia, she is subjected to inhuman torment as Esmay is blamed for the disastrous situation and the galaxy prepares for inevitable conflict.

With the life of Brun and the dominance of the Familias Regnant both in peril, Esmay must go into action once again against a brutal, deranged enemy who would rather die than face defeat…

This story got darker and darker. Not a built-to-scare-as-entertainment dark. A dark that felt real and wrong. Taliban dark. IDF in Gaza dark. Elizabeth Moon brought her characters into conflict with a violent, self-righteous, misogynistic, male-supremacist military group for whom the murder, mutilation, enslavement and rape of women who live ‘ungodly lives’ was a holy mission. It didn’t make for easy reading, but it wasn’t exploitative either. 

What made this part of the book work was that the people, even the ‘warriors’ doing these terrible things, felt human and multidimensional and that the women who had been abducted refused to give up hope, despite the things done to them.

The book also dealt with the internal politics of the military, ranging from manipulation and corruption in pursuit of career goals through to organised treachery, in a way that felt realistic and delivered a fair amount of suspense.

I liked the passage when Esmay Suiza, currently in bad odour with the Fleet, is called home to succeed her recently deceased grandmother as the Landbride of her substantial estates. I loved the concept of the Landbride both for its links to the land and for the matriarchal model that it offered in contrast to the military patriarchy. It was refreshing to get planetside for a while, and the description of the ceremony that made Suiza a Landbride was beautiful. 

The ending was satisfying, and the many challenges ahead of the main characters left me eager for the next book.