Daughter of the Drowned Empire (Book 1 in the Drowned Empire Series) and Son of the Drowned Empire (Book 1.5 in the Drowned Empire series) have been spliced together with chapters appearing in chronological order to create this unique tandem read.
Daughter of the Drowned Empire
To love is to sacrifice your heart
Lady Lyriana Batavia is third in line to the Seat of Power in Bamaria: a position of wealth and privilege, but not safety. Bamaria falls under the rule of the Lumerian Empire, survivors of a celestial war whose island sank in the Drowning. Now all Lumerians submit to the Emperor and his strict laws about magic. He decides what magic can be practiced and what powers remain forbidden. He decides who will die for possession of forbidden magic.
Lyr's own cousin was executed for wielding the wrong kind. And for years, Lyr has sworn to protect her older sisters, helping them conceal their own illicit magic.
But when Lyr must participate in the ceremony that reveals her power, she uncovers something else entirely. Something that means banishment from the Empire.
Faced with death in exile, and leaving her sisters behind, Lyr has no choice but to accept a deadly contract. She has seven months to train as a warrior and pass the Emperor's brutal test of strength, without magic.
But when she's forced to train with Lord Rhyan Hart, the man she's secretly loved since she was a girl-a feared warrior in exile himself, forbidden to her in every way-she's in danger of losing far more than her family, life, and country.
Rebel forces, and an invading army, are destabilizing Bamaria, just as her family's secrets threaten to reveal themselves.
Surviving the training, and saving her sisters may mean sacrificing her own heart.
Son of the Drowned Empire
A Treacherous Oath
Lord Rhyan Hart, Heir Apparent to the Arkasva, High Lord of Glemaria, Imperator to the North, has carried the weight of his title his entire life. But never has he felt it more than now.
After sacrificing everything to protect the girl he loves, a shocking revelation endangers her again. The consequences stretch across the Empire and increase his father's power over him. Rhyan struggles to fight back, and protect his loved ones, but rising threats force new oaths to be sworn-oaths that could ruin everything.
A Deadly Tournament
As the anniversary of the Imperator's rule approaches, he resurrects one of Glemaria's deadliest soturion traditions: the Alissedari. Soturi must enter the arena on gryphon back in a fight to the death. Rhyan knows he has no choice but to win, no matter the cost to his heart or soul.
A Forbidden Love
When evil invades Glemaria, the lines between friend and foe are blurred. Rhyan has always lived by his oaths. But the only way he can fulfill one oath is to forswear another, and the only way to save a life is to take someone else's. How can Rhyan tear the final rope apart to protect the girl he loves when he's not even sure what it means to be a soturion anymore, and every step he takes towards his love puts her in more danger?
(Previously only available as a special edition)