Puabi is the darkest of the Dark High Witches, those who extend their lives, their vitality, their youth, by stolen power. She has taken many lives to preserve her own. But to live this way demands a price. A rending of the soul. All that's good moves on.
She has loved only once, a man who betrayed, humiliated, and abandoned her. A man who didn't care that she'd given birth to his dead son, while he was crossing deserts in search of his lover. Puabi vowed as she buried her child that she would not die until she'd had her vengenace, no matter what it took.
But her chance for vengeance has come and gone. Such a disappointment. Her love had left her to burn in a blazing fire. And she did burn, until she threw herself into the sea. But she didn't die. She rode the currents, drowning, reviving, over and over until she found herself being pulled aboard a boat by the arms of a mortal man.
She's angry at being saved. She'd been ready to...