Promise of Blood (2013)

Promise of Blood is a fantasy novel by American author Brian McClellan, the first book in The Powder Mage trilogy. It was first published by Orbit Books in 2013. A sequel titled The Crimson Campaign was released on May 6, 2014. It won the 2014 Morningstar Award for Best Fantasy Newcomer. The audiobook was narrated by Christian Rodska.

Background and setting

The novel takes place in the kingdom of Adro, one of the Nine Kingdoms founded by Kresimir, a semi-mythical figure now worshiped, along with his nine siblings, as a deity. Magic users are usually divided into three classes:

Knacked are the least powerful, with few or no active magical powers; instead, they have a variety of uncanny abilities;

Powder Mages are wizards with the ability to metabolize gunpowder and use it as fuel for various magical powers, including telekinesis; they can also manipulate gunpowder, such as causing it to explode spontaneously;

Privileged are powerful sorcerers; being exceedingly rare, they are almost exclusively gathered into "Royal Cabals" in direct service to the Nine Kingdoms' various monarchs.

Plot

Prologue

Field Marshal Tamas has just committed a brutal coup against Adro's monarchy. To ensure the success of his coup, he orders the assassination of every member of the Royal Cabal, all of whom utter the same mysterious phrase as they are killed: "You can't break Kresimir's Promise". Concerned about what this could mean, Tamas summons Adamat, a former soldier and police inspector who is now a private investigator, to the Skyline Palace in the center of the capital city of Adopest, as the coup is unfolding. The field marshal instructs Adamat to find what the words mean and what the threat could mean for the future. Tamas arrests Manhouch XII, the current King of Adro, and his queen while his soldiers round up the nobles present in the city. During the purge, a young laundress named Nila, who worked for one of Manhouch's cousins, is saved from rape by a sergeant named Olem, and escapes the purge with the duke's son, Jakob.

The next day, Manhouch, his queen and many of the arrested nobles are executed by guillotine, ending the monarchy in Adro and leading the country on the path to civil war.

Adamat

Adamat conducts his investigation while also dealing with his own issues; his attempt to start a printing press business had failed and he had fallen into debt with some dangerous people, reporting to a mysterious employer. In order to ensure their safety from his creditors but also to protect them from the growing unrest, Adamat sends his wife and children away from Adopest.

As he researches the source of the Royal Cabal's mysterious words, he discovers that all the books which could have answered his questions have had pages removed, suggesting someone did not want him to find out about it. Adamat eventually travels to the South Pike, a large mountain fortress in southern Adro where he meets with the last remaining member of the Royal Cabal, Privileged Borbador. Borbador explains that "Kresimir's Promise" was a story told among Privileged Cabals, dating from the original founding of the Nine Kingdoms: supposedly, when Kresimir left to resume his travels between the stars, he promised the nine kings he had appointed that he would return if their lines were ever overthrown. Both Adamat and Tamas believe the story to be a myth, but Borbador reveals that a curse was placed on the Cabals to ensure that, if their king was killed, they would be compelled to destroy his killer. As the last surviving member of Manhouch's Cabal, Borbador is magically bound to kill Tamas, or else he will die himself.

Taniel

Taniel Two-Shot, Tamas's son, returns to Adopest shortly after the coup, accompanied by a Fatrastan savage named Ka-Poel. Taniel is one of the Adrastan army's most proficient powder mages, who, despite being considered an anomaly by most sorcerers in the Nine, have been increasingly used by the Adran military as sharpshooters. Taniel has been aiding the Kingdom of Fatrasta's war for independence from the kingdom of Kez. Taniel's relationship with his father has been strained since his mother's death, and is even more strained since Taniel broke off his engagement to his fiancée, Vlora, another one of Tamas's powder mages, after catching her in bed with a Fatrastran noble (which Tamas suspects was a plot engineered by the Kez).

Back in Adopest, Taniel is instructed by his father to find an uncommonly powerful member of the Royal Cabal who managed to escape during the coup. To assist him, Tamas assigns a Privileged mercenary named Julene, who Taniel struggles to get on with. Taniel, Julene and Ka-Poel corner the Privileged, a woman named Rozalia (who had previously helped Adamat in his investigation), at Adopest University. Julene and Rozalia, who seemingly have a history, engage in a battle of magic of such scale that Taniel begins to wonder about their true nature. Following these events, Tamas gives Taniel another mission: to find and kill Privileged Borbador to prevent him from completing the curse. Despite Taniel's reticence, Julene is assigned to go with him to South Pike.

Tamas

In Adopest, Tamas forms a council to govern Adro until a permanent replacement for the monarchy can be established:

Ricard Tumblar, the leader of Adro's largest labor union;

Lady Winceslav, an Adran noblewoman who leads a powerful mercenary company known as the Wings of Adom;

Ondraus the Reeve, Manhouch's finance minister;

A eunuch representing the Proprietor, a major figure in the Adran underworld; and

Arch-Diocel Charlemund, the leader of the Adran branch of the Kresim Church.