Sianim

About the Sianim series

Sianim is Patricia Briggs's early fantasy series, named for the mercenary company at its center, and set in a secondary world of political intrigue, old magic, and hard-won loyalty well before she moved into the urban fantasy that made her famous. Masques, her 1993 debut, introduces Aralorn, a mercenary and spy with a shapeshifting secret, sent undercover to investigate a sorcerer suspected of plotting against her homeland. The books that follow widen the cast and the world while keeping Briggs's hallmark focus on characters who are competent, guarded, and slowly learning to trust.

Each novel is largely self-contained, following different protagonists connected to the Sianim mercenary company and its world, rather than one continuous plot -- Wolfsbane returns to Aralorn's story, while Steal the Dragon and When Demons Walk introduce new leads and magic systems within the same setting. Readers who know Briggs only from Mercy Thompson will recognize the same careful world-building and grounded, competence-driven romance threaded through a more traditional epic-fantasy frame.

Complete at four books, Sianim is Briggs's earliest published work and a formative look at the writer she'd become.

How to read this series

Read in publication order: Masques, Wolfsbane, Steal the Dragon, When Demons Walk. Masques and Wolfsbane follow the same protagonist, Aralorn, and should be read together in that order; Steal the Dragon and When Demons Walk introduce different leads within the same Sianim world and can be read more independently, though publication order still gives the most coherent path through the setting. This is an early, largely standalone-per-book series rather than one continuous saga -- there's no ongoing plot you'll lose by reading a book slightly out of order, but starting with Masques is still recommended.