Alianne - known as Aly - has a good life. Her father is second in command of Tortall's spies. Her mother is the most famous knight in the country. Aly spends her time helping her father decode messages and, to her mother's dismay, dyeing her hair blue. But everything changes when, on a solo boat ride, Aly is captured by pirates and ends up a slave to the Balitangs, a noble family on the Copper Isles.