Omnibus edition of Shards of Honor and Barrayar, with an afterword from the author.

In her first trial by fire, Cordelia Naismith captained a throwaway ship of the Betan Expeditionary Force on a mission to destry an enemy armada. Discovering deception within deception and treachery within treachery, she was forced into a separate peace with her chief opponent, Lord Aral Vorkosigan—he who was called "The Butcher of Komarr"—and would consequently become an outcast on her own planet and the Lady Vorkosigan on his.

Sick of combat and betrayal, she was ready to settle down to a quiet life, interrupted only by the occasional ceremonial appearance required of the Lady Vorkosigan. But when the Emperor died, Aral became guardian of the child heir to the imperial throne of Barrayar—and the target of high tech assassins in a dynastic civil war that was reminiscent of Earth's Middle Ages, but fought with up-to-the minute biowar technology. Neither Aral nor Cordelia guessed the part that their cell damaged unborn would play in Barrayar's bloody legacy.