Elsuon - The Stonecutter's Son (Unabridged)

"There is in the East, beyond the trick-spirits of the Sea of Pleats, a most-strange country. One that all who hear of it agree has lost and gained more than any kingdom in any place since the world first fell to the riot of those Old Disloyals."

And so opens Elsuon.

Two hundred years after a powerful sorceress, an undying queen, and a light-taming saint established a quivering truce in the Eastern Fortunes, a talented architect by the name of Branadan and his son Allesson enter the mysterious country of Nymiria.

In Stormscale, the capital, a hard-as-nails Archduke prepares for war.

As the centuries-old truce (formally known as the Passion of Aeolain) comes to an end, the seven great families of Nymiria contend for the Archduke's daughter, who, being of age before the law, must take a lord.

If she marries, it is one war; if she doesn't, it is another.

Other dangers are gathering: witches (Black Cast) who work twisted miracles; saint-despising separatists (Aeolistopalians) mobilizing near the Perch of the Gorgons; barbarians (Abareeds) on the march from the Sky Anvils; the Old Horde (Ghul Maraud and Puck Trolls) amassing in the Valley of the Moonseeds; and a foreign banking cartel (the Wounded Reliance) lead by a savior turned dark; and the arrival of a beautiful traveler from beyond the Keel of Stars.

The final omen: a strange mountain that has slowly turned for nine thousand years suddenly stops, angering the lightning-spraying, whale-hunting dragons (Karganoi) who have roosted there for millennia.

All this and much more gamble for the soul of Nymiria and the young life of a stonecutter's son-

Allesson.

Or, as destiny regards him-

Elsuon.