Age of Swords (The Legends of the First Empire #2)

Age of Swords (The Legends of the First Empire #2)

Michael J. Sullivan


Author’s Note


Welcome back to The Legends of the First Empire! I want to start by thanking you for the warm reception extended to the new series. It’s a risky business setting aside a well-established franchise and creating something new, and I’ll admit I was a bit anxious with the release of Age of Myth. I love the new characters and hoped you would, too, but until a book gets into the hands of the readers, I’m never sure how it’ll be received. Well, the book has been out for seven months and the results are in. Age of Myth has garnered more than ten thousand reviews and ratings from Goodreads, Audible, and Amazon. Even better, 90 percent have rated it a 4 or 5 and only 2 percent a 1 or 2. I don’t think I could ask for more than that! So thank you for assuaging my fears about not being able to write anything that didn’t have Royce and Hadrian in it.

Speaking of characters, one of the things I love most about Age of Swords is shining a light on more of the key players for the series. From its onset, I wanted The Legends of the First Empire to consist of an ensemble cast, but had I fully introduced all the players in the first book, it would have significantly dragged down the pacing. Age of Myth already had a lot to do: introduce two major races (Rhunes and Fhrey), set up the cultural differences between them (primitive and technologically advanced), and tell a self-contained story while starting threads that will weave across the entire narrative—such as what’s up with Malcolm and Nyphron, and who is Trilos and what part does he play.

In Age of Myth, you’ve briefly met Gifford, Roan, Brin, and Moya, but with Age of Swords, you’ll start to see why I love them so much and what unique aspects they’ll be bringing to the rest of the story. Of course your old favorites will be back, including Persephone, Raithe, Malcolm, Arion, and I couldn’t leave out Suri and Minna. You’ll also have a chance to meet the Dherg, a race that we don’t get to see much of in The Riyria Revelations. Traveling to their homeland will be a major aspect of this story, and I’m pleased to introduce the last of the triumvirate that makes up the major races in the world of Elan.

There is something else I would like to mention before sending you off to the tale. In the author’s note of Age of Myth, I mentioned that the whole series was written before I submitted the first book, and this was, and is, true. But I fear I may have unintentionally given the wrong impression, and I want to clear things up. What I’m referring to is the difference between written and done, which is a pretty wide chasm. Having all the books written means: I completed the first draft to my satisfaction. But done is something much more. It requires polishing the books after receiving feedback from others I trust, including my alpha reader, my beta readers (generally fifteen to twenty people), my agent and a few others at his agency, my editor, and my publisher. And then the line editors, copy editors, and proofreaders need a chance to further groom the manuscript and turn it into something I couldn’t do on my own. All those finishing touches take time, and that’s a major factor in the release schedule.

I will say that we are going to try to shorten the time between books for the rest of the series. Yes, there was a one-year gap between the first book and this one, but that was largely because some major rework was required. You see, when Robin (my wife and alpha reader) finished the series, she proclaimed the first three books to be in really good shape, but believed that the end of the series had a number of issues. There were a few plot points she felt were confusing, and some logic that she didn’t agree with; most important, she felt that the ending was rushed. As is usually the case, she was right.

To address these concerns, I spent over a year working on the ending, and in the process, the series grew from five books to six. You see, I was trying to smoosh (a highly technical literary term) two books together when the story really wanted a natural break at a particular point. While I was off doing that, Age of Swords sat untouched. Until I had the series ending reworked, I didn’t know what changes would be needed in Age of Swords, and as it turned out, some tweaks were necessary. I would have hated to release it and then been unable to make the required adjustments.

Anyway, I turned the revised book over to Robin in May 2016, and for the rest of the year we gathered additional input, incorporated changes, and line and copyedited the manuscript, which was finally locked down in early February 2017. It’s a fascinating process seeing a manuscript morph into a finished book. If it’s something you are interested in, Robin is creating The Making of Age of Swords—a free ebook that provides an interesting peek behind the scenes. We did something similar with the third Riyria Chronicle (The Death of Dulgath), and you can receive either of these just by sending an email to: [email protected]. Please make sure the subject of the email includes “Making of…” and the title (or titles) you are interested in, and we’ll send them out to you.

Okay, last thing, I promise. If you read the acknowledgments of Age of Myth, you might have noticed that I mentioned wanting to hear from people. I’ve had hundreds of letters, most of which apologize for intruding on my time. I always get a chuckle out of that, as if knowing people like my books could ever be an imposition. I’ve enjoyed these letter so much that I thought I would once again extend the invitation. So if you like this book (and even if you don’t), feel free to drop me a line at [email protected]. I’m always interested in hearing what you have to say.

And that’s the end of my preamble. Now sit back, adjust the volume if you’re listening to an audiobook, or adjust the font and background of the ebook, or run your fingers down the paper and take a deep breath of the ink of your printed copy. It’s time to dive in. Age of Swords is my favorite book of this series, and I hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I did writing the tale.





CHAPTER ONE


The Storm




Most people believe the first battle of the Great War occurred at Grandford in the early spring, but the first attack actually took place on a summer’s day in Dahl Rhen.

—THE BOOK OF BRIN





“Are we safe?” Persephone shouted up at the oak.

Magda was the oldest tree in the forest, massive and majestic. Standing before her was like staring at an ocean or mountain; each made Persephone feel small. Realizing her three-word question might be too simple, too vague, she added, “Is there more that needs to be done to protect my people from the Fhrey?”

Persephone waited for an answer.