Preview of Book 4: Conspiracy

Epilogue: At the dinner, the emperor presses a note into Basilard’s hand.

Chapter 19: After escaping the lake and thwarting the kidnappers, Basilard heads off for a dinner hosted for the victorious athletes. Amaranthe has made peace with Mancrest, and, at Maldynado’s urging, agrees to a picnic with the man, but Sicarius has something to say about that…

Chapter 18: Amaranthe and the others fight their way to the ballast tanks, hoping to force the laboratory to the surface.

Chapter 17: With the help of an escaped athlete, the team fights its way inside to search for their comrades. Unfortunately, the marine ship above has decided to drop explosives to destroy the laboratory.

Chapter 16: Hoping Mancrest’s brother will distract the people and the creature defending the laboratory, Amaranthe and the team try to infiltrate it in underwater breathing suits.

Chapter 15: Basilard and Sicarius attempt an escape, but soldiers and wizards defending the laboratory rally to hunt them down.

Chapter 14: Realizing they’ll need help to rescue their comrades, Amaranthe returns to Mancrest, hoping to convince him to tell his naval captain brother of the trouble on the lake bottom.

Chapter 13: After the team realizes the kidnappers and victims are housed in a submergible laboratory at the bottom of the lake, they must figured out how to access it. To make matters worse, a fearsome underwater predator is guarding the structure.

Chapter 12: Basilard is strapped down on a laboratory table next to Sicarius and the missing athletes. Too bad Sicarius is drugged and unconscious.

Chapter 11: Basilard wakes up naked in the cell of a strange vessel. Meanwhile, Akstyr gets a lead on the kidnappers and takes Amaranthe and the others to the docks.

Chapter 10: After turning the trap on Mancrest, Amaranthe and the rest of the team take their new clues and search for the kidnappers in the heart of the capital. Amaranthe discovers an old enemy is involved.

Chapter 9: Basilard and Sicarius are both missing. Deret Mancrest proposes another meeting, this time at midnight in the ruins of Pyramid Park. Amaranthe suspects another trap, but the journalist may have useful information.

Chapter 8: Amaranthe and Maldynado search for Sicarius. Basilard competes in the “clank race” and draws the kidnappers’ attention by posting the fastest time amongst the early round entrants.

Chapter 7: Sicarius fails to return from the spy errand.

Chapter 6: Amaranthe and Sicarius visit a group of miners who may have something to do with the kidnappings. Shortly after sending Sicarius off to follow the leader, she discovers his name on a list that includes the missing athletes.

Chapter 5: Amaranthe talks Basilard into entering an event in the Games, thus to spy from within.

Chapter 4: After eluding Mancrest’s trap, Amaranthe decides to visit him anyway, to see what information the journalist may have on the kidnappings. Dinner with Mancrest—with Sicarius looming nearby—proves interesting.

Chapter 3: Sicarius’s hunch is correct. Meanwhile, the rest of the team searches the Imperial Games grounds and find signs of illegal magic use.

Chapter 2: Maldynado has arranged a “date” with a warrior-caste journalist, Deret Mancrest, for Amaranthe. Believing it a trap, Sicarius invites himself a long.

Chapter 1: The crowded Imperial Games stadium is no place for outlaws to loiter, but when word of kidnapped athletes reaches Amaranthe Lokdon she realizes this may finally be her team’s chance to earn the emperor’s attention—and a pardon.