The Warrior Princess and the Barbaric King

Serafina is the West's most decorated knight, captured in battle by the East's barbarian king and prepared for the kind of torture her veterans warned her about. The king instead offers marriage. Refusal is the obvious answer. Her host city is also strikingly civilized, the king is annoyingly handsome, and her own kingdom — which has spent her career disappointing her — is not going to fight for her release. The season works as an enemies-to-arrangement story with one foot in court politics and the other in the slow project of Serafina deciding what she actually owes anyone.