Utah-born author Jennifer A. Nielsen was born in 1971 and is primarily known for her middle grade and young adult fantasy novels. Her Ascendance series, previously known as the Ascendance trilogy, is her most well-known work. The first book in the series, The False Prince, was published in 2012 and received the Whitney Award for Best Middle Grade Novel. The second book, The Runaway King, also won the same award in 2013. The Shadow Throne, the last book of the original trilogy, was published in 2014. Following the success of the first installments, two other books were later added to the series, The Captive Kingdom (2020) and The Shattered Castle (2021).

The narrative of The Runaway King picks up one month after the events of The False Prince. In the opening book of the series, Jaron, the narrator and protagonist of the Ascendance series, is only referred to as Sage. Sage is introduced as a 14-year-old orphan recruited along with several other boys by a nobleman named Bevin Conner. The latter wants to train the boys in order to replace Carthya’s younger prince (Prince Jaron) with one of them. Indeed, Prince Jaron has been assumed dead after his ship was attacked by pirates.