Carnelians — Catherine Asaro

Carnelians. Two empires. And five hundred years of war.

The leaders of the Eubian empire and Skolian Imperialate have survived political intrigue, military coups and murder attempts as they worked to forge a peace treaty between their two empires. Now comes the hard part -- making that treaty work.

Assassins are poised on both sides. Their mission: murder the leaders for the "crime" of striving to end half a millennia of hatred between their empires. The main players in the peace process barely manage to survive as they navigate the Byzantine convolutions surrounding the negotiations. The violence escalates until the militaries on both sides must be called in, all in the hopes of keeping everyone alive so the leaders on both sides can meet in the first ever summit between their civilizations.

Will the summit set the stage for the first peace these war-weary civilizations have ever known -- or will it become a trap that annihilates all they've worked so hard to achieve?