The Madness of Kings
เด เด-เดฌเตเดเตเดเดฟเดจเตเดเตเดเตเดฑเดฟเดเตเดเต
Welcome to the Middle Kingdoms, the most peculiar place on Dib, where the royalty all look like one another and also like the five founding gods of creation. Nine feudal theocracies that havenโt embraced new technology in three thousand years, the Middle Kingdoms is a land that never changes, surrounded by a world that changes constantly.
A Death in the Family
Battine Alconnot made a promise to return to Castle Totus for the Feast of Nita. Sheโd very much like to break that promise, except that it was made on her motherโs deathbed, to her sister Porra. Disappointing Porra Alcon wouldnโt be wise underย anyย circumstance, but itโs doubly so given sheโs also Queen Porra, wife to King Ho-Kenson, sovereign of Totus kingdom.
Batt hasnโt felt genuinely welcomeโin court or among her own familyโsince she was a child, because Battine is a rare descendant of royalty who doesnโtย lookย like it. The gods choseย notย to smile upon her, genetically. Sheโs an unblessed. An outcast. Still, she goes. And when a member of the royal family is murdered in the castle, sheโs the first person accused.
Of course.
Battine teams up with theย otherย most likely suspectโan outsider named Damid Magly who knows more than heโs tellingโto find the real killer. What they find instead is far more serious.
There are secrets buried deep beneath the kingdomsโฆsecrets that could destroy the royal families, and secrets that could alter the future of the entire planet.
The Man in the Sky
Meanwhile, in Velon, Detective Makk Stidgeon is dealing with the fallout from the Orno Linus murder case. The county attorney wants Makk to find more evidence, while Ornoโs brother Calcut mostly just wants Makk dead. His ex-partner, Viselle Daska, remains missing, as does her father, Ba-Ugna Kev. Both are wanted for murder.
Makk is also sitting on two things Orno Linus risked his life to steal from the House vaults. Theyโre important, but he has no idea why.
Now comes an odd proposal: Ba-Ugna Kev wants to turn himself in. But he has conditions. He wants to surrender to Makk personally, he wants the Veeser Elicasta Sangristy to be there as well,ย andย he expects them to come alone.
Kev can tie everything together: Ornoโs murder, the stolen artifacts, and what his daughter has to do with all of it. But heโs also tried to kill Makk and Elicasta once already, and to retrieve him theyโll have to go to the one place where theyโre guaranteed to have nobody watching their backs: the space station Lys.
The Madness of Kingsย is the thrilling second book inย Tandemstar: The Outcast Cycle.
