But I think the key of this book, and the thing I think some redemption stories miss out on, is that sometimes redemption isn't, can't be, about getting the forgiveness of the people you hurt. That does happen in this book, at least the very first tentative steps of it, but the important thing is that sometimes, the first step to becoming a better person is getting out of the circumstances that enabled you into becoming a bad one, and getting away from the people who will reinforce negative views of you, INCLUDING THE PEOPLE YOU HURT.

Xena Warrior Princess! I think it's really easy to forget that Xena is a spinoff, and early on especially, it's about her really grappling with the harm she's done in the past. She has to confront a lot of people she hurt, and at some points people who helped her hurt others, that's an aspect of things, but she also has Gabrielle, and Joxer, and others. People who know at least some of what she did, and who don't excuse it, but who love her because she's never hurt THEM, because she's earned their love. It's such a good and necessary part of redemption arcs for me, that the person who did a shitty thing gets to build something new, something free from that history, so they have a solid foundation when they do try to make amends. And it means that if they can't make amends, if there are people they hurt too much to get forgiveness from them in specific, that doesn't mean there's no good they can do in the world! They have a new community to try in!

Book 1: The Salvage Point

Odinie Karnisan doesn't want to be her mother's heir. She almost managed to get taken out of the running of the competition of her eligible siblings three years ago by betrothing herself to the heir of Pess Station, only for her future wife to be killed in transit to their wedding. Now, with her grandmother getting more ill by the day, she's beginning to feel more hemmed in. When she takes her troubles and fears to her fiancee's grave on the icy planet Pess orbits, she finds herself kidnapped by ice smugglers, only to be rescued days later by someone she never sees.

Left with questions, Odinie starts looking into the ice theft and her rescue, and finds answers she never could have imagined.

(Got to workshop this blurb, it fails to capture how much of a ruthless nightmare Odinie is, what an unreliable narrator she can be, and how much of this book is a love letter to competent assistants.)

Book 0.5: The Blue Solution

Imander Karnisan is ready for answers. Her mother's competition for which of her children will rule Karn after her is stagnating Imander's military career, and Imander is itching under the ambiguity and frustrated every time she tries to grow in her career by supervisors who insist on her safety over making use of her competence.

When her ship responds to a natural disaster that has trapped miners inside their mine, she's determined to show that competence, and she does so, but at the cost of falling victim to a collapse and having to go on medical leave to recuperate.

While on leave, she connects with the mine's administrator, Eusta Kale-Na, and begins exploring what her future could look like if she stopped basing it on what other people want for her.

(This is the novella I'm planning to edit this summer! It's actually set before book 1, but makes the most sense after one has been introduced to the world, so will probably be released as a companion or reward or something for book 1.)

Book 2: The Four Welcomes

In Karn, the ruler, and thus the heir, must have at least two spouses: one for domestic alliances, and one for a foreign alliance. Tesma Karnisan, newly named heir after his grandmother's death, has had the domestic alliance (and two children to prove it) for years, but he and his wife Adit can't put off searching for a new spouse any longer.

Their choice settles on Sershi Rannelau, a prince of a polity Karn was at war with two generations ago, but not before their safely popular family starts losing public favor after Adit is caught on camera in an altercation witha journalist. Sershi is charming and willing to bring his terraforming expertise to reinforce the terraforming on Karn's planet, but the public immediately turns against him, remembering the war.

With Karn seemingly against them, Tesma, Adit, and Sershi must learn to work together and unravel who wants Tesma off the throne, who wants Sershi gone, and whether those people are the same at all.

(The only book in the series that's diced up into multple POVs! The others are all one POV with interludes in other ones, but this is in thirds, starting with Adit, moving to Sershi, and finishing with Tesma.)

Book 3: The Cost of Will

Madis Karnisan lost. He lost the heir contest, and he lost his family in the process, though he's also been confronted with how little he had them in the first place. Now in quiet disgrace, he takes the first escape hatch he can find: marriage to Hasi Kastina, heir to Matrei Fleet, a relatively new polity where Madis can reinvent himself and take a new name, a tempting offer that outweighs his fear of the void.

Hasi proves to be a kind husband with a kind community around him, and Madis tries his best to settle in and assimilate and find a new purpose, but Hasi is hiding news that is going to change Matrei's place in the larger galaxy and catch Madis between who he has been and who he is now. Even after he changes his name, adopted by a new parent, he'll always be a Karnisan.

(This is good blurb practice, I am so bad at blurbs, please forgive me for this. Anyway, I love my feral cat son so much, I feel like 60% of my space blorbos tag is just text posts about this man.)

Book 4: The Weight of Stone

Eshrain Karnisan has been watching their siblings' marriage choices and seeing their own options for alliances dwindle. Karn's empire is in three parts, and while two of their siblings have allied with the moon and the planet, nobody has allied with the station, and despite being a sculptor who works in stone, Eshrain is determined to let their younger sister Gavie make a true choice of spouse, which means they're going to pick a spouse from the station.

Their obvious choice is Sita Zene-Ki, son of the station's governor, but they take an instant dislike to him and try to give themself other options by hosting a marriage party where eligible people can mingle. When Sita is murdered, though, that gives them a whole party--and then a whole station--of suspects to look into, with help from Sita's cousin Jaiar Zened.

(My murder mystery! I love Eshrain dearly, I'm looking forward to editing this one when I've got the brain for it.)

Book 5: The Mooring Tree

Gavie Karnisan is the youngest and least important of her siblings, especially as she's only a child of the empress's marriage, not blood related to her. That means she had the flexibility to choose to train as a pediatric nurse instead of a more glamorous career, and it means she's unimportant enough to spend the summer as a nurse at a camp for children recovering from a recent war in a different polity.

The war isn't quite done with them, however: on a hike with several campers and a counselor named Deino, Gavie is taken hostage by a group of squatters in the woods, former military from the space station that made up half of the conflict. With Deino at her side, she has to find a way to survive and escape her captivity, survive the journey that follows, and then find a way to get them both home.

(Truly the first half of this book is just a survival thriller, then there's politics and Gavie solving problems and such in the second half.)