Avaryan Rising

The king's heir of Ianon is long lost, vanished into the south. Her father refuses to name his son heir in her place, though that son is a mighty warrior. Then one day a young wanderer arrives with news that both breaks and heals the king's heart: his heir is dead, but before she died, she gave birth to a son. That child, now grown, has come to take her place. But the king's son will not surrender his hope of kingship to a boy without a father, though he claims to be the son of a god.

Elian of Han-Gilen is the pride and scandal of her father's princedom. She has out-ridden, out-hunted, and out-shot every suitor. Now comes one whom she could bring herself to love: no lesser man than the throne prince of the Golden Empire. But Elian swore an oath as a child to a foster brother who is now a warrior king. Consort to an imperial heir or squire at arms to a conqueror: Elian must choose, and in choosing, decide the fate of two empires.

Kidnapped, tortured, betrayed by his brothers whom he loved, the heir of the Golden Empire has lost everything but his life. His only hope is a chance encounter, a wandering priest from the Empire of the Sun. But the priest is more than he seems, and the prince is stronger than he knew; and war is coming. Two empires hang in the balance. Two emperors will fall, unless the prince and his unwelcome ally find a way to make peace. But peace comes at a price; and that price may be too high for either to pay.

The war between the Golden Empire and the Empire of the Sun is over, the empires merged into one, and one emperor over them all: Estarion, heir to both royal houses. But Estarion will not accept half of his heritage, nor will the Golden Empire willingly accept him. The same forces that assassinated his father are arrayed against him, led by the last scion of an ancient imperial line‚ and he must stand against them and truly unite the empires, or see all the great work of his ancestors reduced to rubble.

Prince Daros of Han-Gilen is an infamous rake and wastrel–and a hidden and completely untrained mage of enormous power. Caught breaking the strictest laws of the Mageguild and their magical Worldgates, he is sentenced to serve an aged emperor far away from either taverns or temptations. But a tide of darkness is rising to swallow the worlds of the Gates. Mages are dying and worse; but Daros's very lack of training shows him the way to stand against the tide: to enter the darkness, and pay its price, and engage it on its own ground.