Premise
4 courts.
3 secrets.
2 sides.
1 war.
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Leila Bhat-Bayza, The Liar.
She will do anything to keep the life she left behind in the First City secret.
If it means murder, then murderer she will be.
If it means sacrifice, she is ready to risk it all.
When her old life begins to hum to her, when the infallible drums of war begin to sound in whispers on the fallen streets of the Fourth City, when she begins to feel the tides churning under her feet, she knows something is coming. Something bearing the face of all the people she left behind and all the demons still searching for her on the banks of the Holy River.
She can’t let them touch her new family. She can’t let them ruin everything.
She will fight to keep everything from changing.
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Wraith Bar-Illain, The Spider.
Sold into slavery for trying to save the only family he ever had from suffering the fate of all those who fall to the Brotherhood of Thorns, Wraith Bar-Illain has a bone to pick with the rest of the world.
It has been seven years. Seven years of crawling, seven years of waiting, seven years of torture. Seven years of silence.
And now, with his finger on the beating pulse of the Empire’s machinations for warfare in the North, he must play the long game. He must move the pieces on this board, and he must win.
The only other option is death.
He will fight to change everything he has ever known.
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Azoulai Astaseul, The Weak Link.
The only son of the First Councillor of the First City and heir to his chair and position as ruler over the Cities of Saem, Azoulai has lived in the shadow of his father’s ambitions all his life, too weak to do anything but bow and scrape and get out of his father’s way.
When the Emperor sends word of his desire to make war on the High Houses of Erudian and Leawyn, his father makes a terrible decision, throwing Azoulai into a sea of carnage and the possibility of death if he refuses to grow into the role his father has carved out for him.
But maybe Azoulai’s father doesn’t know everything about his son. Maybe he hasn’t even scratched the surface of everything Azoulai can do. Maybe the weak link has a few secrets of his own lurking under the surface?
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Bastien, the Puppet Prince.
The First Son to the Sun lands is not the Heir, and that is where all his troubles begin.
Bastien, though he was born to his father’s first wife has three older brothers who want his position as heir. When his mother sends a request for a Bloodletting, a fight to the death until one heir emerges over the others, he makes a decision that will leave his world in tatters.
He accepts.
Journeying to the Capital city of Duram, he finds his father in the throws of political troubles with the Naehleese High Prince, Bastien’s Grandfather.
The rules of the Bloodletting are clear.
Winner takes all.
No mercy to those who fall.
Bastien has too much to lose, but soon he finds that he is only a piece on a much larger board. One that is entirely out of his control.
Four Courts. Four Stories. All Intertwined
In this war, only one side can emerge victorious.
The question is, who?
