About the Book
The
Charisian Empire, born in war, has always known it must fight for its
very survival. What most of its subjects don’t know even now, however,
is how much more it’s fighting for. Emperor Cayleb, Empress Sharleyan,
Merlin Athrawes, and their innermost circle of most trusted advisers do
know. And because they do, they know the penalty if they lose will be
far worse than their own deaths and the destruction of all they know
and love.
For five years, Charis has survived all the Church of
God Awaiting and the corrupt men who control it have thrown at the
island empire. The price has been high and paid in blood. Despite its
chain of hard-fought naval victories, Charis is still on the defensive.
It can hold its own at sea, but if it is to survive, it must defeat the
Church upon its own ground. Yet how does it invade the mainland and
take the war to a foe whose population outnumbers its own fifteen to
one? How does it prevent that massive opponent from rebuilding its
fleets and attacking yet again?
Charis has no answer to those
questions, but needs to find one…quickly. The Inquisition’s brutal
torture and hideous executions are claiming more and more innocent
lives. Its agents are fomenting rebellion against the only mainland
realms sympathetic to Charis. Religious terrorists have been dispatched
to wreak havoc against the Empire’s subjects. Assassins stalk the
Emperor and Empress, their allies and advisers, and an innocent young
boy, not yet eleven years old, whose father has already been murdered.
And Merlin Athrawes, the cybernetic avatar of a young woman a thousand
years dead, has finally learned what sleeps beneath the far-off Temple
in the Church of God Awaiting’s city of Zion.
The men and women fighting for human freedom and tolerance have built a foundation for their struggle in the Empire of Charis with their own blood, but will that foundation be firm enough to survive?
