Book III : The House of Integrity

Preparation is half the battle

Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e is finally free of Arko, and since Yeola-e is all but conquered, even the capital fallen, his people need him desperately. Only problem: he's so insane he can't even talk, his mind shattered by torture at the hand of Kurkas Imperator's minions. Not good when the first thing you have to do to prepare for war is talk a lot of other powers into allying with you.

But Chevenga is resolved that nothing will stop him. And he is in the best place for healing: Haiu Menshir, the pacifistic island that supplies the rest of the region with its healers in return for being allowed to live in peace.

Telling his healers he need not be healed completely, just enough to lead a war, he leaves Haiu Menshir prematurely to undertake a series of alliance negotiations. These will require eloquence, deviousness, diplomacy, the ability to commune with foreign deities, his first ever airborne battle and just plain balls.

But Chevenga has support of a kind he's never had before in the form of a personal physician: a young Haian named Kaninjer of Berit, who is going to the mainland in part because he's determined to understand war, and the people who fight it, from the inside.