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1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

A grand adventure, the rebirth of the Skolian Empire, and the romance that commenced this saga.

Eldrinson Valdoria is a bard and leader on the planet Skyfall, a world with a culture considered primitive by the starflung civilization of the Imperialate. As adept with a sword as he is with a ballad, he is also an undiscovered telepath of great power.

Roca Skolia, a former dancer, is now the councilor for Foreign Affairs in the Imperialate's governing Assembly and heir to the Ruby Pharaoh of the Skolian Imperialate. Caught in a political struggle with her warlord son, she ends up stranded on Skyfall and missing a meeting of the Assembly to vote on humanity's first interstellar war. Though trapped, she finds herself drawn to Eldrinson, whose thoughts are as clear as the words he cannot write. As their attraction deepens into a love that the laws of both their peoples forbid, the flames of war ignite among the stars.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      August 18, 2003
      Intrigue, drama and romance converge in Nebula winner Asaro's latest Skolian Empire adventure (after 2003's The Moon's Shadow), an enthralling stand-alone that fills in the early history of the empire. Married and a widow twice over, Roca is not only the heir to the Ruby Dynasty's pharaoh, Lahaylia Selei, but also the Skolian Empire's foreign affairs councillor and an unwilling pawn in her son Kurj's efforts to rid the empire of its enemy, the sadistic Aristos. In a bid for freedom from her overbearing, manipulative son, Roca escapes and finds herself marooned on a backwater planet, Skyfall, whose inhabitants have mysterious genetic traits that connect them to the Ruby Empire of long ago. Roca becomes the hostage, captive, confidant, lover and finally wife of the bard Eldri. Though their technology is primitive, the inhabitants of Skyfall have a no less advanced society than her own. Eldri teaches Roca to trust men again, and in the end, to find a love that can surpass the demands of her position as heir to the Ruby throne. Some SF fans may be disappointed to find so little of the physics the author, a former physics professor, usually puts into her books, but romance readers will have no cause to complain. (Sept. 17)FYI:
      The Quantum Rose, the sixth novel in the author's Saga of the Skolian Empire, was named Best SF Novel by
      Romantic Times Bookclub.

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  • English

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