The Scarab Path

The war with the Wasp Empire has ended in a bitter stalemate, and
Collegium has nothing to show for it but wounded veterans. Cheerwell
Maker finds herself crippled in ways no doctor can mend, haunted by
ghosts of the past that she cannot appease and seeking meaning in a city
that no longer feels like home.
The Empress Seda is regaining control over those imperial cities that
refused to bow the knee to her, but she draws her power from something
more sinister than mere armies and war machines. Only her consort, the
former spymaster Thalric, knows the truth, and now the assassins are
coming and he finds his life and his loyalties under threat once again.

• author: Adrian Tchaikovsky