Navigational Entanglements

Using the power of Shadows generated from their own bodies’ vitality, Navigators guide space ships safely across the Hollows: a realm of unreality populated by unfathomable, dangerous creatures called Tanglers. In return for their service, the navigator clans get wealth & power—but they get the blame, too. So when a Tangler escapes the Hollows & goes missing, the empire calls on the jockeying clans to take responsibility & deal with the problem.

Việt Nhi is not good with people. Or politics. Which is rather unfortunate because, as a junior apprentice in the Rooster clan, when her elders send her on a joint-clan mission to locate the first escaped Tangler in living memory, she can’t exactly say no. She is forced to work with an ill-matched group of squabbling teammates from rival clans, including one who she can’t avoid, & maybe doesn’t want to. 

Hạc Cúc of the Snake clan usually likes people. It says so on her resume: “information gathering”—right after “poisoning” & “stabbing.” So she’s pretty sure she’s got the measure of this group: they’re the screw-ups, the spares; there isn’t a single sharp tool in this shed. She’s drawn to Nhi’s perceptiveness & obliviousness to social conventions—including the ones that really should make Nhi think twice about spending time with her.

But when their imperial envoy is found dead by clan poison, this crew of expendable apprentices will have to learn to work together—fast—before they end up cooling their heels in a jail cell while the invisible Tangler wreaks havoc on a civilian city & the reputation of all four clans. Along the way, Nhi & Hạc Cúc will have to learn the hardest lesson of all: to see past their own misconceptions & learn to trust their growing feelings for each other.