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Imriel de la Courcel’s blood parents are
history’s most reviled traitors, but his adoptive parents,
the Comtesse Phèdre and the warrior-priest Joscelin, are Terre
d’Ange’s greatest champions. Stolen, tortured, and enslaved
as a young boy, Imriel is now a Prince of the Blood, third
in line for the throne in a land that revels in art, beauty,
and desire. It is a court steeped in deeply laid conspiracies...and
there are many who would see the young prince dead.
Some despise him out of hatred for his
birth mother Melisande, who nearly destroyed the realm in
her quest for power. Others because they fear he has inherited
his mother’s irresistible allure—and her dangerous gifts.
And as he comes of age, plagued by dark yearnings, Imriel
shares their fears.
At the royal court, where gossip is the
chosen poison and assailants wield slander instead of swords,
the young prince fights character assassins while struggling
with his own innermost conflicts. But when Imriel departs
to study at the famed University of Tiberium, the perils he
faces turn infinitely more deadly.
Searching for wisdom, he finds instead
a web of manipulation, where innocent words hide sinister
meanings, and your lover of last night may become your hired
killer before dawn. Now a simple act of friendship will leave
Imriel trapped in a besieged city where the infamous Melisande
is worshiped as a goddess; where a dead man leads an army;
and where the prince must face his greatest test: to find
his true self.
Jacqueline Carey, the bestselling author
of Kushiel’s Avatar and the award-winning Kushiel’s Dart,
returns to her sensual, richly textured world of Terre d’Ange
in a thrilling new epic fantasy of dark intrigue and intimate
passion.
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