Bingtown is a city of merchant families who bond for generations with wizardwood liveships — vessels that gain awareness when enough family members die aboard them. When patriarch Ephron Vestrit dies at sea, his beloved Vivacia awakens, but his will bequeaths the ship to his son-in-law rather than his sailor daughter Althea. Furious and dispossessed, Althea sets out to reclaim what is hers, while the newly conscious Vivacia is forced to carry a family she barely knows — and draws the dangerous attention of the pirate Kennit.

Althea Vestrit is stubborn, skilled, and fighting against a world that constantly undervalues her — a sailor in a society that expects women on land. Her journey from dispossessed daughter to capable captain is one of Robin Hobb's finest character arcs.

Across three books, multiple narrators — Althea, Vivacia herself, the ship Paragon, serpents searching for their spawning grounds, and the ruthless Kennit — weave together in a tapestry of political intrigue, family betrayal, and a shocking revelation about the true nature of liveships. The series builds to an emotionally devastating and cathartic conclusion that recontextualizes everything that came before.