The Witch Roads
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
Book 1 in the Witch Roads duology, the latest epic novel by fan favorite Kate Elliott.
Status is hereditary, class is bestowed, trust must be earned.
When an arrogant prince (and his equally arrogant entourage) gets stuck in Orledder Halt as part of brutal political intrigue, competent and sunny deputy courier Elen—once a child slave meant to shield noblemen from the poisonous Pall—is assigned to guide him through the hills to reach his destination.
When she warns him not to enter the haunted Spires, the prince doesn’t heed her advice, and the man who emerges from the towers isn’t the same man who entered.
The journey that follows is fraught with danger. Can a group taught to ignore and despise the lower classes survive with a mere deputy courier as their guide?
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Elliott (Furious Heaven) opens a new series with this page-turning epic fantasy, throwing lowly deputy courier Elen and her nephew, Kem, into peril as they unexpectedly encounter the high and mighty of the Tranquil Empire. Elen's duties require her to make a circuit of backwater village Orledder Halt, keeping watch all the while for the deadly Spore, a contamination that mutates and kills all life it touches. Then Prince-Warden Gevulin arrives in town unannounced. He's on a secret mission northward—but an avalanche has blocked the imperial roadway, a fact that the prince's rival, Prince Astaylin, Exalted General of the Corps of Imperial Engineers, should have alerted him to. Gevulin is generally above noticing people like Elen, but she and Kem are the only two at Orledder who know a passable path. They join his party—and witness a bizarre change in Gevulin after he chooses to overnight at a haunted ruin. His unpredictability adds to the danger on the road, where threats abound in the form of the Spore, nonhumans, and human agents who seek to thwart their mission. Elliott builds an impressively complex world, combining a feudal social structure with a bio-magical threat and a history so ancient that much of it is unknown. Readers will be eager to see where this story goes next.
