A weaver of tales, a caster of spells, and a writer of rare imagination, Sarah Ash lends her unique vision to epic fantasy. In this captivating continuation to her story, the author of Lord of Snow and Shadows revisits a realm filled with spirits and singers, daemons and kings.
Gavril Nagarian has finally cast out the dragon-daemon from deep within himself. The Drakhaoul is gone—and with it all of Gavril’s fearsome powers. Though no longer besieged by the Drakhaoul’s unnatural lusts and desires, Gavril has betrayed his birthright and his people. He has put the ice-bound princedom of Azhkendir at risk and lost.
Emerging from his battle with the Lord Drakhaon scarred but victorious, Eugene of Tielen exacts a terrible price. He arrests the renegade warlord Gavril Nagarian for crimes against the Rossiyan Empire and sentences him to life in an insane asylum—for the absence of the Drakhaoul is slowly driving Gavril mad. But Eugene has another motive as well. He longs to possess the Drakhaoul—at any cost to his kingdom and his humanity. With Gavril locked inside the Iron Tower, three women keep his memory alive. His mother returns to the warmer climes of her homeland, where she foments the seeds of rebellion. A young scullery maid whose heart is broken by Gavril’s arrest sends her spirit out to the Ways Beyond. And even the emperor’s new wife is haunted by her remembrances of the handsome young painter who once captured her soul.
The five princedoms of a shattered empire are reunited. The last of Artamon’s ruby tears adorns Eugene’s crown. But peace is as fragile as a rebel’s whisper—and a captive’s wish to be free.
Glowing with the powers of light and darkness, Prisoner of the Iron Tower will astonish and enthrall you, as courtly intrigue collides with the fantastic—and good and evil become as nebulous as the outlines of a dream.
Description:
A weaver of tales, a caster of spells, and a writer of rare imagination, Sarah Ash lends her unique vision to epic fantasy. In this captivating continuation to her story, the author of Lord of Snow and Shadows revisits a realm filled with spirits and singers, daemons and kings.
Gavril Nagarian has finally cast out the dragon-daemon from deep within himself. The Drakhaoul is gone—and with it all
of Gavril’s fearsome powers. Though no longer besieged by the Drakhaoul’s unnatural lusts and desires, Gavril has betrayed his birthright and his people. He has put the ice-bound princedom of Azhkendir at risk and lost.
Emerging from his battle with the Lord Drakhaon scarred but victorious, Eugene of Tielen exacts a terrible price. He arrests the renegade warlord Gavril Nagarian for crimes against the Rossiyan Empire and sentences him to life in an insane asylum—for the absence of the Drakhaoul is slowly driving Gavril mad. But Eugene has another motive as well. He longs to possess the Drakhaoul—at any cost to his kingdom and his humanity. With Gavril locked inside the Iron Tower, three women keep his memory alive. His mother returns to the warmer climes of her homeland, where she foments the seeds of rebellion. A young scullery maid whose heart is broken by Gavril’s arrest sends her spirit out to the Ways Beyond. And even the emperor’s new wife is haunted by her remembrances of the handsome young painter who once captured her soul.
The five princedoms of a shattered empire are reunited. The last of Artamon’s ruby tears adorns Eugene’s crown. But peace is as fragile as a rebel’s whisper—and a captive’s wish to be free.
Glowing with the powers of light and darkness, Prisoner of the Iron Tower will astonish and enthrall you, as courtly intrigue collides with the fantastic—and good and evil become as nebulous as the outlines of a dream.
From the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
In the second installment of British author Ash’s Tears of Artamon trilogy, a skillful mix of horror and romantic fantasy, vampiric dragons soar against a wonderfully gothic backdrop straight out of Tolstoy by way of Stoker, Dumas and Tolkien. At the conclusion of Lord of Snow and Shadows (2003), Gavril Nagarian, Lord Drakhaon of Azhkendir (a princedom in the Rossiyan Empire), succeeded in casting off the Drakhaoul, the dragon-daemon that possessed him. Now Gavril; his mother, Elysia; and his new love, Kiukiu, a gifted "spirit singer," face the wrath of Prince Eugene of Tielen, whose forces Gavril prevented from taking Ashkendir in book one. Eugene returns to defeat Gavril and send the former portrait painter to a mental institution where his brain becomes the subject of mad experimentation (shades of Shelley!). Ash’s playful, tongue-in-cheek brew of Russian history, folklore and myth explores age-old moral dilemmas in a plot as tricky and unpredictable as a Gypsy tarot reading. Fans will look forward to the ultimate confrontation between blood-sucking firebirds and humans in book three.
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From Booklist
After nearly killing the woman he loves, Gavril Nagarian succeeds in extricating himself from the bond that has tied him, body and soul, to a dragon-daemon. But in so doing, he betrays his countrymen, for without the daemon, Gavril is just an ordinary man, lacking magical powers and unable to defend his small holding against Eugene, would-be emperor of the five princedoms. Eugene wants more than a crown, however; he wants power and revenge, and when he unlocks the fabled Serpent's Gate, he gets all that he desires and, perhaps, a bit more than he can handle. He quickly learns that the power of the Drakhaoul can destroy not only his enemies but also his new empress and unborn child, his adored and badly crippled daughter--in short, everything he cares for. Even his own life is imperiled. But as the daemon gains strength and power, becoming one with its host, Eugene begins to lose sight of his most precious gift, his own human heart. Solid, wonderful fantasy, sparkling and imaginative! Paula Luedtke
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