Seconding this -- sounds like one of the branches in my particular musical preference tree almost exactly.

Look also into Tempest, if you haven't already stumbled over them via the Leslie Fish-Heather Alexander*-Mercedes Lackey connection.

-- Bob
* Hand over heart for the former Heather's now-lost voice. One must do what is right and true for oneself, but Heather's gender reassignment stole that voice from us and replaced it with one not quite so wonderful; for that reason alone I allow myself to occasionally wish she had not undergone reassignment.
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My race is pacifist and does not believe in war. We kill only out of personal spite.