Children of earth and sky

From the small coastal town of Senjan, notorious for its pirates, a young woman sets out to find vengeance for her lost family. That same spring, from the wealthy city-state of Seressa, famous for its canals and lagoon, come two very different people: a young artist travelling to the dangerous east to paint the Grand Khalif at his request and a beautiful oman, posing as a doctor's wife in her role of a spy. The trading ship that carries them is commanded by the clever younger son of a merchant family - with ambivalence about the life he's been born to live. And farther east a boy trains to become a soldier in the elite infantry of the khalif - to win glory in the war everyone knows is coming. As these lives entwine, their fates, and those of many others, will hang in the balance, when the khalif sends out his massive army to take the great fortress that is the gateway to the western world.