Empire Ascendant
Worldbreaker Saga #2
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
A “completely original and inventive” epic fantasy set in a land of blood mages and sentiment plants, dark magic, and warfare on a scale that spans worlds (Locus)
Loyalties are tested when worlds collide…
Every two thousand years, the dark star Oma appears in the sky, bringing with it a tide of death and destruction. And those who survive must contend with friends and enemies newly imbued with violent powers. The kingdom of Saiduan already lies in ruin, decimated by invaders from another world who share the faces of those they seek to destroy.
Now the nation of Dhai is under siege by the same force. Their only hope for survival lies in the hands of an illegitimate ruler and a scullery maid with a powerful—but unpredictable—magic. As the foreign Empire spreads across the world like a disease, one of their former allies takes up her Empress’s sword again to unseat them, and two enslaved scholars begin a treacherous journey home with a long-lost secret that they hope is the key to the Empire’s undoing.
But when the enemy shares your own face, who can be trusted?
As the convergence between the two worlds strengthens, alliances are made and broken, magic and mayhem abound—and before it’s all done, at least one world will be shattered and broken.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An entire world is being invaded by the forces of a parallel universe in the capable second installment of Hurley's Worldbreaker Saga, following The Mirror Empire. Every 2000 years, the dark satellite Oma rises, and many universes begin to crack. In the world of the Tai Mora, Oma is destroying everything, but no one can who has a living double in another universe as many do, because the worlds are very similar can escape into that universe. Ahkio, leader of the Dhai people, desperately tries to muster a resistance as Kirana, Empress of the Tai Mora, conducts a genocidal invasion so that her people can take the Dhai's places in a world that will survive. The former scullery maid Lilia, whom Oma has granted fearsome magical powers, bends her will toward halting the Tai Mora. Many other nations, individuals, and factions are caught up in the war; the complicated setting is well-handled, but this second book is not a good starting place for new readers. Interesting moral issues and three-dimensional characterization lend spice to a story that is too often near-gratuitously bleak.
