The Emperors Knife ($9.99 Kindle), the first novel in the Tower and Knife Trilogy by Mazarkis Williams, is this week's Free Friday selection at Barnes & Noble, courtesy of publisher Night Shade Books.
Quote:
There is a cancer at the heart of the mighty Cerani Empire: a plague that marks each victim with a fragment of a greater design. Geometric patterns spread across the skin, until the victim dies in agony or becomes a Carrier, doing the bidding of an evil intelligence.
The lost prince Sarmin, the emperor's only surviving brother, lies locked in a hidden room. As the pattern draws closer to the palace he is at last remembered: now he awaits a bride, Mesema, a Windreader from the northern plains. She is accustomed to riding free across the grasslands and finds the Imperial Court stifling, but she soon realizes the politicking is not a game. It is in deadly earnest.
Eyul, the imperial assassin, is burdened by the atrocities he has committed. As commanded, he bears the emperor's Knife to the desert in search of a cure for the pattern-markings.
As long-planned conspiracies boil over into open violence, the enemy moves towards victory. Now only three people stand in his way: a lost prince, a world-weary killer, and a young girl from the steppes who saw a path in a pattern once, among the waving grasses.
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http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-...=9781597803854
note: I could not get my B&N copy to download, either via the web or my tablet. anyone else have better luck? Is B&N's license server down?