The heroine is a living ship which has feelings and can talk. On the death of its master it is inherited by a man who wants to use it for transporting slaves. The ship is against this and forms an alliance with the man's sister who had hoped to inherit it and now plots to get it.

In the exotic slave-trading city of Bingtown, Althea Vestrit's family Liveship, Vivacia, has been taken by the pirate Kennit, leading to a dangerous plan involving an insane Liveship. As the ancient tradition of Bingtown's Old Traders slowly erodes under the cold new order of a corrupt ruler, the Vestrits anxiously await the return of their liveship -- a rare magic ship carved from sentient wizardwood, which bonds the ships mystically with those...