Razo--short, funny and not a great soldier--is sure it's out of pity that his captain asks him to join an elite mission--escorting the ambassador into Tira, Bayern's great enemy.

But when the Bayern arrive in the strange southern country, it’s Razo who discovers the first dead body. He’s the only Bayern able to befriend both the high and low born, people who can provide information about the ever-increasing murders. And he’s the one who must embrace his own talents in order to get the Bayern soldiers home again, alive.

Newbery–Honor winner Shannon Hale returns the reader to the intrigue and magic of Bayern, introduced in her critically acclaimed novels, The Goose Girl and Enna Burning. In River Secrets, readers revisit a world where even those with no special magical skills find in themselves something they never imagined.