Growing up in a well-run if near-subsistence society, where the men guard the borders, and the women run the town, made Theos's path in life obvious. He would become a warrior, a Sacrati, the best of the best. He would have companions and casual lovers among his fellow-soldiers, and occasional times when he went to the women in town, to potentially father children. Life would go on in a well-proven path. Eventually he might die in battle, but he'd have lived well and simply until then.

But Theos's life is overset when his troop captures a group of soldiers from neighboring Elkat, inside Torian territory. Finnvid is one of the Elkats, and his healing skills mark him out from the beginning. So does his youth, attractiveness, fearless attitude, and puzzling role in the group. When they get back to town, and more than one high-level Torian shows an odd interest in Finnvid, Theos claims him as a prize, to keep him safe and try to unravel the puzzle. But for a man who didn't even really know that politics of power and greed were a thing, Theos is well behind the learning curve, and his simple honesty isn't helpful.

Finnvid finds captivity and Torian society, and especially the large barbarian who now owns him and yet treats him well, a complete puzzle. He had a mission, which is well and truly screwed up. And the more he sees of how Torian society actually works, the more he doubts it was a good plan to begin with. And then there is the fact that his attraction to men, a barely-acknowledged shameful impossibility at home, is a casual non-event among the Torians, who have more same-sex relationships than opposite-sex ones. Finnvid's sympathies and allegiances are badly torn. He has to decide over and over who he will be, and who is worthy of his support.

This was an imaginative and sweet story, despite the violence of battle, capture and betrayal in it. I really enjoyed the re-imagining of a social structure with equality based on differences and separation of the genders. The main characters were worth cheering for. This is technically a slave story, but there is no real darkness and no non-con here. Just some interesting world-building and coming of age of two very different men.