The Midnight Spy

Ravensfell

Berjerac, Sartis

Seventeen year-old Nica Santos risks her life traversing the tower ledge to spy on her father's meeting with one goal in mind: escape from Sartis and her father's unrelenting cruelty. She is spotted by her father's newest, and most handsome, soldier, Jonn Shanks, but he releases her when he learns she is Mosaba's daughter.

Her father announces he has captured King Jacoby, of the neighboring country of Jarisa, and that Sartis is at war with Jarisa.  Recognizing that the onset of war will be her chance to leave, Nica sneaks into her father's office at midnight to steal a map and encounters Jonn Shanks again, who accuses her of being a spy. Nica returns the insult and hurries away, unsettled and anxious to get on with her plan to run away from Sartis.

One stormy night she escapes, along with her friend, Toppen, the wine apprentice. They head for the southern land sliver to cross the Great Divide into Jarisa. At the sliver, however, they are intercepted by Shanks, and that's when Nica realizes she has been tricked....