The Arcana

Before sunrise, eighteen-year-old Elisabet Bessa Philomelos rejoices in news of Edana Nuriel, a long-lost friend who has returned home at last. After sunset, they both must flee for their lives.

Bessa has many questions: Who were the giants that slaughtered the workers in her vineyard? Demons summoned by a powerful sorcerer? Or invaders from an undiscovered country? How can she protect her home?

Edana has many secrets. Posing as an ordinary businesswoman, she must carry out a deadly game of seek and destroy on a mission from Nensela that even the empire’s best spies dare not undertake.

Nensela of Ta-Seti has many plans. As one of five seers with a vision of the giants, she formulates a daring strategy to fight back. She believes the giants are from out of the past, before the Third Dark Age, before the rise of the empire of Rasena Valentis. The secret she harbors may be her destruction — or their salvation.

The giants come from nothing, and disappear into nothing, leaving only bodies in their wake. In one thousand days they will fill the plains as far as the eye can see. They will let loose a fire that sets the firmament ablaze, and a scream that shakes the ground asunder. Forced to fight from the shadows, Nensela, Edana, and Bessa must work together to stop destiny.

Or die trying.