Seeking to destroy an evil force that threatens the planet Erna, warrior priest Damien Vryce renews a dangerous alliance with an immortal sorcerer known as the Hunter, and begins a treacherous quest to the eastern continent. Reprint.
More than a millennium after the human race forges an uneasy stalemate against the demonic human-psyche feeders known as the fae, a pain-hungry demon called Calesta declares war on all living beings. Reprint.
Sheltered all her life in a corporate satellite in Earth's outer orbit, Jamisia must face the truth about her origins and her role in the power struggle between the Guerans who dominate intergalactic transportation and the rest of Earth's far-flung and genetically mutated colonies who are trying to break the Guera Guild's monopoly.
For hundreds of years, Earth has suffered under the yoke of alien conquerors: the dreaded Tyr, a reptilian race in which all individuality is submerged into a single, overarching consciousness. Determined to keep humanity cowed, the Tyr have culled from the captive population the most intelligent, the most curious, the most likely to foment rebellion, and banished them from Earth. As the memory of freedom recedes, humanity sinks into a lethargic subservience. Daetrin, the hero of this tale, is a vampire--not a monster, however, but a man, nearly immortal, who embodies the vanished virtues of a once-sovereign Earth. When his existence is exposed by the Tyr, who are appalled to find a human who witnessed the Conquest, they immediately ship him offworld. Thus begins a journey of self-discovery as Daetrin is forced by adversity to come to grips with the long-suppressed side of his nature and to confront the ancient horror of a bloody heritage.
At the end of her bestselling Coldfire trilogy, C.S. Friedman challenged readers to imagine what a world would be like if sorcery required the ultimate sacrifice-that of life itself. Now, in Feast of Souls , she introduces us to a terrifying world in which the cost of magic is just that...in which the fuel for sorcery is the very fire of the human spirit, and those who hunger for magical power must pay for it with their lives. In this epic tale of nightmarish shadows and desperate hope, the greatest threat of all may not be that of ancient enemies returned, or ancient wars resumed, but of the darkness that lies within the hearts of men.
Over a millennium ago, Erna, a seismically active yet beautiful world was settled by colonists from far-distant Earth. But the seemingly habitable planet was fraught with perils no one could have foretold, and the colonists found themselves caught in a desperate battle for survival against the fae, a terrifying natural force with the power to prey upon the human mind itself, drawing forth images from a person's worst nightmare or most treasured dreams and indiscriminately giving them life. Twelve centuries after fate first stranded the colonists on Erna, mankind has achieved an uneasy stalemate, and human sorcerers manipulate the fae for their own profit, little realising that demonic forces which feed upon such efforts are rapidly gaining in strength. Now, as the hordes of the dark fae multiply, four people - Priest, Adept, Apprentice and Sorcerer - are about to be drawn inexorably together for a mission which will force them to confront an evil beyond their imagining, in a conflict which will put not only their own lives but the very fate of humankind in jeopardy ...
The story revolves around two civilizations: the Braxaná, engineered as elite warriors, and the Azeans, who harness mental prowess. Their ongoing conflict, rooted in a forgotten cause, faces a new crisis as the legacies of their greatest military leaders emerge, endangering both empires. Tensions rise as past legacies challenge the foundations of their societies, setting the stage for a dramatic confrontation.