In the colossal void of Shatterspace, besieged by bloodthirsty marauders and brimming with monstrous aberrations, the only constant is power: The deft will escape the slow. The clever will outwit the naïve. The strong will take from the weak.

Axia wishes she could be grateful to have spent her life—or what little she remembers of it—on an asteroid so far from anything of interest that even the greediest spacers see fit to pass it by. Her days may not be as exciting as the swashbuckling stories of her favorite books or as dramatic as the pasts she’s imagined for herself, but they’re as safe as Shatterspace can manage. So why does something inside her long for the stars every time she sees a spacefaring spelljammer vessel?

When Axia survives a sudden assassination attempt, she is cornered by Kori and Nia, a pair of pirates who offer her two options: flee with them to Wildspace, where they can keep her hidden among their crew, or die. It’s an easy choice with death at her doorstep. But even in the vastness of the Astral Sea, Axia quickly realizes that her new friends haven’t been entirely honest about their motivations.

It turns out, Axia is the spitting image of Blacktongue, the long-disappeared captain of one of the deadliest pirate crews in Shatterspace. And Kori and Nia have a plan to claim the mysterious treasure that the pirate queen vanished while pursuing. To survive, Axia will have to fill Blacktongue’s bloodstained boots and embark on a more perilous and thrilling adventure than any she’s dared to dream.