The Emperor's Knife: Tower and Knife Book I (Tower and Knife Trilogy)

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. And as the geometric patterns cover the skin, so the victims fall under the power of the Pattern Master.

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, and now he awaits the bride his mother has chosen: Mesema, a Windreader from the northern plains. She is used to riding free across the grasslands, now she must learn the politicking of the Court is not a game, but deadly earnest.

Eyul, imperial assassin, is burdened by the atrocities he has committed, and his advancing years. As commanded he bears the emperor’s Knife to the desert in search of a cure for the pattern-markings.

Conspiracies soon boil over into open violence and the enemy moves toward victory. Now only three people stand in his way: a lost prince, a world-weary killer, and a young girl who once saw a path through the waving grasses.

Mazarkis Williams read modern history at university and has worked as an editor, copyeditor, and graphic designer, and has been in the same tabletop role-playing game for fifteen years.