The Poisoner of Kingfountain Books in Order

The Poisoner of Kingfountain series steps away from kings and heirs to follow the woman who quietly shapes many of their fates: Ankarette Tryneowy. In the main Kingfountain novels she is already a feared and whispered‑about figure, the queen’s poisoner whose talents keep a fragile peace. Here we see how she became that person.

The early books follow Ankarette as the daughter of a lawyer and a midwife, growing up during a brutal civil war inside the Argentine family. Recruited into intrigue while still young, she’s thrown into a world where loyalty is fluid, and survival means learning to read motives as carefully as she measures herbs. Mentors like Sir Thomas help, but guidance is never simple; even good advice can carry hidden costs.

Each installment gives Ankarette a new assignment that doubles as a moral test. In one story she must retrieve a wealthy widow whose hand could tip succession battles. In another, she’s sent into an enemy capital to chase whispers of a legendary sword connected to the Maid of Donremy, the series’ Joan‑of‑Arc echo. Later, she and longtime allies confront fresh treason as old wars spark back to life.

Poison in these books is more than a tool for assassins. It symbolizes how influence works in Kingfountain: slow‑acting, often invisible, and as likely to cure as to kill depending on the dose. Ankarette mixes antidotes and toxins, cultivates rumors, and weighs which secrets to keep from the rulers she serves. The danger is as much spiritual as physical; bitterness and compromise can corrode just as surely as any venom.

Readers who enjoyed the main Kingfountain saga will find familiar faces seen from new angles—Eredur, Horwath, the Maid, and others whose reputations in the later timeline are shaped by the choices on display here. At the same time, these novellas and novels stand well on their own as tightly focused tales of espionage, found family, and the price of doing the right thing in a court that rarely rewards it.