Welcome to the Black Pits Daughter to a country noble and betrothed to a decrepit King, Lady Petunia Thule spends her days despairing her lot. Her father, a greedy social climber in charge of the King's penal iron mine under the Crooked Spears, a hopeless place called the Black Pits, is eager to see his daughter married and his family's position secured. Getting Petunia to the Thrain capital of Isha is of utmost importance. What neither of them expects is the strange intervention of John Tisdale, a man unfairly imprisoned by Lord Thule for his kindliness with his daughter. On the long road from Kalingshire to Isha, it is said that anything at all can happen. John and the Lady are about to find out just how true that old adage speaks.