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by Martin R. Nelson (Author)
Resentment festers. Thousands of years after the Empire of Kai'loth fell, the world of Tesseris is bound together by the Five Pentarchs of the Crux. Outside the massive city, the pirates of the Verdant Sea grow bolder with each passing season, and strange tales spread of villages uprooted as if by giants, giving the pentarchy more pressing matters to worry about than corruption within their ranks. Yet in the shadows an ancient order of monks has quietly tasked a select few with finding the lost heirs to the old imperial family...
Within the Crux itself, Damien the Pentarch speaks on behalf of the southern continent. His conscience guides him to end the Crux's corruption, but he quickly finds that little can be done without sullying his cloak in the alleys himself. Yet it's in those alleys that the seamstress Fei spends her days toiling for the rich and old nobility, or dealing with would-be attackers targeting her youth and half-elf status. Her fortunes change when a wealthy noble offers her patronage to Fei, but it may come with a cost she's unwilling to pay.
A world away on the high seas, the cabin boy Sea Rat foolishly questions the deadliest pirate the world has seen in generations. Left for dead, he's discovered and nursed by Wharf, a seaman weathered and beaten by decades of pillaging and plundering. Whether pity or mercy, the two begin an unlikely friendship as they set out to gain notoriety, testing the limits of what it means to call someone family.
Far off from the city and the seas, an elfling named Qel patrols the wilds. A mistake of youth finds him giving his life to the boy Tesador. Qel's dealt little with other races, but he knows enough of men to recognize the boy's odd features, so odd that many will search for him, just as many have for generations before...
