Y’all may remember Anna Kashina from one of Boosting the Signal’s two inaugural posts, when I featured her book Blades of the Old Empire. Now Book 2 has been released from Angry Robot, and I promised Anna I’d get her post up this past Friday. But I’ve been swamped working on Victory of the Hawk. So here it is today instead! More regularly scheduled posts will resume once I finish getting Victory out of my brain.

In Anna’s first post you met Nimos of the Kadim Brotherhood. Now meet Kara, and what she seeks to do following the events of Book 1!

My name is Kara. I am a Majat warrior of the Diamond rank. Very few in existence are capable of matching me in a one-on one fight, and they all are my fellows in rank. Diamonds.

My skill makes me a spearhead of the Majat force, and one of the most cherished guild members. People in the Majat fortress treat me like royalty. I can have anything I want. All in exchange for one thing—obedience. No matter what, I must obey the Code of my Guild.

I have no memory of my parents, or of any other life. The Majat Guild is my home, my family that trained me to fight, kill, and obey, ever since I was five. I’ve never had a problem with this life. Being a Diamond Majat is in my blood, and I fit my role well. Or so I’ve thought.

I am not permitted to love, even though the Majat Guild encourages us to explore our sexuality during our training. When I felt an attraction toward the man I was hired to protect—Prince Kythar Dorn—I was prepared to suppress these feelings. But when an enemy hired me by name to kidnap Prince Kythar and deliver him to his murderers, I found, for the first time in my life, that I was unable to follow my orders. Instead, I secretly escaped from my Guild and delivered Prince Kythar to his friends and protectors.

I knew the price I must pay of this. My life. I knew exactly what awaits me. A Majat assassin would be sent to execute me. He would be specially trained to target my secret weakness, known only to my trainers and the people who raised me. He would strike me down, and there would be nothing whatsoever I could do about it.

And then, the impossible happened. The man my Guild had sent after me, Mai, chose to spare my life. He had disabled me and made it seem as if I was dead. He had me in his power, but he let me live.

Now, I am the first Majat warrior in the history of my Guild free of my obligations. The Majat have no Code to cover my situation, which had been considered to be impossible before. But sooner or later my Guild will find out what happened. They will send another killer. This time, after Mai.

I owe him my life. I will not abandon him to pay for his actions that gave me my freedom. I will follow him and fight by his side till the end.

Mai is my destiny now. I will not betray him.

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