‘Borkuwori’ is set in one of the most turbulent periods in the chronicles of the Ahom Empire – one of the longest-surviving empires in South Asian History. It moves through decades of political conspiracy, terrifying assassinations, and the slow arrival of forces from the outside world that the empire’s closed borders cannot keep out forever. At the centre of it all is not the King, not the sage, not the assassin, nor the Lords. But the woman the novel is named for. Aikuwori Kuxumi – the Borkuwori, the chief queen – a scholar, a strategist, and the most brilliant mind in the empire.