"Highly enjoyable and meaningful. This book is for people looking for new ideas and new points of view." (SF Booklog) Bestselling author F. Paul Wilson is known for his thrillers and horror fiction, but he got his start as an Read more
Now with a new Afterword by David Drake A Friendship Forged in Hell! Daniel Leary is a lieutenant in the Republic of Cinnabar Navy with no money and no prospects since he quarreled with his ruthless, politically powerful father. Adele Read more

But he’s a Prince of the Realm, which make things a bit more… complicated. And when Hazard’s parents tell him that they don’t trust his older brother and want Hazard to be the Crown Prince—the heir to the throne—things go from bad to worse.
And just when they can’t get any worse, the Empress is attacked.
What is a simple fleet lieutenant supposed to do with his mother in a coma, a seemingly invincible enemy on the offensive, a darkness from the past stirring, and his paranoid older brother trying to assassinate him?
What Naval officers do best—improvise. And he’s going to need all his skills, as well as the help of a former spy, a handful of Marines, and a few close relatives, if he’s to defend the Empire against all enemies, foreign and domestic.