The story opens with Ishbel losing her family at a young age and being rescued by the Coil, where she is brought up and becomes the arch priestess of that order. Then she's ordered to go to Maximilian in Escator and become his wife.
Maximilian is torn, the coil have a terrible reputation but he needs them for his kingdom to continue.
And that's just the beginning of the story, it includes kidnapping, great evil trying to get free of it's prison and overarching plotting that both complicates and helps our heroes. I enjoyed the story and found that it moved quite quickly.
