Big, sprawling, and complicated, the Children of the Desert series features characters who risk their lives for causes ranging from profound to exceptionally stupid.
THE CHILDREN OF THE DESERT SERIES IS OUT OF PRINT AS OF 2025
A brief overview of each book
[NOTE: “brief” for a given value of “brief” — I did my best to keep it bare bones]
[NOTE 2: CAUTION: SPOILERS]:
Secrets of the Sands (book one):
A young noblewoman intervenes with the king on behalf of a servant –- and lands herself in a complex mess that changes every aspect of her life as repercussions unroll across the following books.
Synopsis: Alyea Peysimun, the noblewoman in question, is appointed temporary control of the lands of a southern Family (Scratha), because Lord Cafad Scratha, last of his line, has managed to piss off King Oruen in Bright Bay, and has been sent on a rambling tour of the Northern Kingdom rather than back to his lands. Despite the King having no authority to do any such thing – which, along with all the other southern Families, are not under Kingdom control. and only weak leverage, Cafad — frustrated with everything and unwilling to go home — accepts the arrangement and sets off with an unexpected companion: a street thief, Idisio, who he caught picking his pocket.
Alyea, on her way south, encounters a young woman, Gria, and her mother Sela, who were lured south on the promise of marriage to a wealthy southern nobleman. Gria and Sela found out too late that it was a trap: they are bound into slavery. Alyea intervenes and takes them into her own custody, which interferes with a dangerous southern plot.
She is betrayed by one of her advisors and kidnapped, then thrust into a set of three trials that will either kill her or make her a desert lord possessed of mystical powers. One of the trials is held at the Qisani, a highly dangerous location that contains a nest of multiple ha’reye, an ancient race who were in hibernation until humanity began to ascend towards civilization; they exact a high price in exchange for giving her psychic powers, and she almost dies. She survives in part due to an unexpected ally: Deiq of Stass, who routinely poses as a human merchant. Deiq is in fact a ha’ra’ha — half ha’rethe, half human. He begins to instruct Alyea in her new abilities and responsibilities.
Alyea learns that the trials were necessary in order for her to control Scratha Fortress and stand up to the other Families. Desert lords have, for centuries, served as a bulwark between humans and the ha’reye; their abilities allow them to fill a ha’rethe’s needs and wants, sparing their people the burden and danger.
For centuries, Deiq has secretly been working against the ha’reye, undermining their dictates that turn desert lords into slaves rather than the originally intended partners. Helping Alyea with her transition is one of the ways he’s fighting back against his ha’reye elders.
Meanwhile, Lord Cafad Scratha, furious upon learning that Alyea Peysimun was assigned to handle his Family lands, turns sharply south towards his home. Along the way, they pick up another companion, Riss, a pregnant young woman shunned by her community and desperate for escape. Not long after that, Scratha realizes that Idisio is actually a ha’ra’ha: Idisio’s newly awakened powers grow stronger the further south they go. Cafad does his best to guide Idisio through the transition, but is entirely unequipped for such and admits it. His attempt to find someone better qualified is a miserable failure, and they continue on towards Scratha Fortress, using previously hidden teleportation tunnels.
Cafad has already sent word to all the other Families that he’s calling a Conclave to address the validity of his claim to being Head of Scratha, a long standing point of contention kicked into high gear by Alyea’s appointment. Cafad Scratha is not in direct line of accession: he has his title because he is the last of his line after the entire fortress was wiped out in a single night by an unknown assailant. Cafad escaped only because he was out of the fortress at the time. He has long sought the identity of the people behind his family’s slaughter; it’s almost a monomania with him, and the source of his harsh demeanor, as he suspects everyone around him knows the answer and is hiding it from him.
Cafad and his companions arrive shortly after Alyea and Deiq. The various Family representatives are already gathering for the Conclave, and a number of clashes and political maneuvers erupt. Gria and Sela are there as well, and as part of Alyea’s final trial, Gria is revealed as the most direct heir to Scratha; her slavery was a deliberate attempt to either put her under the control of someone who can take Scratha by right of ownership, or to render her unsuitable and kick off a battle for dominance.
Cafad has always assumed that the ha’rethe in charge of protecting Scratha Family was dead, since if it was alive, surely it would have prevented the attack. He discovers that it has only been sleeping; he has to bond with it to truly be a desert lord of Scratha Family, and he does so.
Idisio and Riss, who have been feuding the whole way south, become lovers. Various political factions are introduced. Scratha takes charge of his lands, holding the question of Gria’s status for Conclave. Alyea and Deiq are shunted off to honored guest quarters, along with most of the guests.
Everyone takes a breath and ready themselves for Conclave; the story is left there.
In Guardians of the Desert (book two), a cynical older statesman, deeply scarred by his recent experiences, tries to explain to that same young noblewoman how pointless it is to care about saving lives — then abandons his own advice in order to rescue her.
Synopsis: During the Conclave at Scratha Fortress, Lord Scratha formally recognizes Gria as Head of Scratha and himself as her regent; Alyea Peysimun is accepted as a full desert lord and Peysimun House declared equivalent to a desert Family; and Alyea is, controversially, invited to visit the teyanain on her way back to Bright Bay.
The teyanain, led at this time by Lord Evkit, are a reclusive, xenophobic group who were once the justiciary of the desert Families. They want to reclaim that power, but only have real influence in their territory — the Horn, a relatively narrow isthmus connecting the north and southlands. For Alyea, a newly declared desert lord of a northern Family — an unprecedented status — to visit the Horn as an honored guest is a politically fraught move, made more so by the reality that Lord Evkit always has plans within plans, designed around gaining power for himself and his people.
Alyea is working to learn her new responsibilities, abilities, and needs as the Conclave concludes; for one, she is confronted with the expectation that she will take kathain, specialized servants trained to assist desert lords with their emotional and physical needs. Deiq does his best to work through her preconceptions and prejudices. At the same time, he is doing the same for Idisio as the young man comes to terms with his newly revealed heritage.
Deiq is not Alyea’s only support at Scratha Fortress. Lord Azaniari, a friend of Cafad’s and another desert lord of politically murky status, offers Alyea another perspective on her situation and responsibilities.
Alyea, Deiq, and Idisio leave with the teyanain, bound for the Horn; Lord Evkit’s special minions, the athain, speed the long journey to a matter of days instead of the weeks a normal trip would take. Athain have remarkable and dangerous abilities, and are a large part of the reason the Families are wary of openly challenging Lord Evkit.
On arrival at the Horn, Deiq and Idisio are ambushed and taken elsewhere. Lord Evkit speaks to Alyea alone. He warns her that Deiq is far, far more dangerous than she thinks, and that the elder ha’ra’ha will kill her one day. He also speaks to Deiq, and extracts a binding oath that both Deiq and Idisio will stay out of teyanain controlled lands until formally allowed passage. They are released and continue to her home, the king’s city of Bright Bay.
In Bright Bay, Alyea clashes with her mother, who is not at all pleased with the new status of Peysimun House, refuses to believe in the abilities of desert lords, and immediately hates Deiq; clashes with her cousin, a greedy wastrel; and clashes with Deiq, whose stubborn insistence on escorting her everywhere is causing trouble. She and her companions are summoned before the King, and meet Lord Eredion Sessin, a weary elder ambassador of another southern Family. He survived the Purge, while working as ambassador to the former king, by way of a series of compromises that he now deeply regrets.
By way of penance, Lord Eredion has been working to clear the extensive dungeon prisons left behind by the previous kings. Opening an unusually reinforced door, however, releases an insane ha’ra’ha, who nearly kills Eredion in her rush to escape. The king tasks Deiq, Eredion, and Idisio with trapping or killing the mad ha’ra’ha who is now terrorizing Bright Bay.
Idisio, terrified on hearing that ha’ra’hain can go mad, and fearing that he himself will do so, runs away to think that through. Deiq follows, and walks into another ambush, this time by the mad ha’ra’ha herself. She kidnaps Idisio and leaves Deiq in critical condition.
The hunt is paused as Alyea refuses to leave Deiq’s bedside, and Lord Eredion considers it his duty to fill in as support for Alyea. They receive a letter, ostensibly from Idisio, claiming that he is with his mother, wants to be left alone, and will be “going home” with her. Deiq, able to sense impressions from the paper, can tell that Idisio hasn’t written the letter of his own free will and that his mother is indeed the mad ha’ra’ha who kidnapped him.
Given Deiq’s continuing weakness, he makes the decision to call off the hunt. The mad ha’ra’ha has left Bright Bay, after all, and his duty to train Alyea is more important than saving Idisio. It’s a cruel calculation based in self interest — he’d rather stay with Alyea — as well as reluctance to face off with someone who’s already laid him out once.
Alyea, after yet another clash with Deiq, goes for a walk by herself and is promptly ambushed by her wastrel cousin’s allies, who intend to hold her for ransom. She came back laden with expensive gifts, after all, and her cousin has gambling debts to pay off. As they aren’t aware of her new powers, she breaks free relatively easily. Unfortunately, while she was captive, word went out to a much more dangerous set of criminals who do know what she is. She is recaptured and held for an entirely different ransom: they believe they can break her into submission and use her new status to finance and enable their various illegal activities. She is unable to escape this time.
Deiq and Eredion, the former half insane with anger, track her down and destroy everyone involved. Alyea has been badly abused in the course of her captivity; now she is the one in critical condition and Deiq the one at her bedside. He blames himself for letting her out of his sight.
As they’re fighting to bring her back from the overdoses of drugs she was fed, a young mercenary named Tank arrives with a desperate plea for help from Idisio. Both Eredion and Deiq are too busy tending to Alyea to spare a thought for Idisio, however. The mercenary, while waiting for an answer, hears Alyea screaming and goes to see what’s happening. Her distress draws him in, sparking his own past trauma and his own psychic abilities, and Tank winds up being the one to guide her out of the madness the drugs have imposed on her.
Deiq, extremely unhappy about a stranger’s intervention being more effective than his own efforts, sends Tank on his way with strict instructions to never return, to let Alyea believe he was a hallucination, then returns to tending Alyea.
Once he’s sure she’ll recover, he gives in to centuries of depression, guilt, and emotional exhaustion, and readies to kill himself. Alyea, warned of the danger by Eredion, intervenes; Deiq collapses, allowing a human to support him for the first time in hundreds of years. The story is left there.
In Bells of the Kingdom (book three), a former street thief faces the reality — and the downside — of recently acquired power over others. In his efforts to remain as human as possible, he causes more damage than he prevents — including to himself.
Synopsis: The story revisits the Conclave and succeeding events, as seen through Idisio’s eyes. It also introduces three new point of view characters: first, Tank, a young man with a troubled past and psychic abilities of his own. Tank, once a pawn for Aerthraim Family, has broken away and intends to live life on his own terms, far from the southlands. Unfortunately, his abilities, as well as a previous meeting with Idisio back in the latter’s street-thief days, make that an impossible dream, and he is sucked into ongoing events as the story progresses.
Next, Kolan of Arason — a town far to the north — is a young priest of the Northern Church who was imprisoned and tortured alongside Ellemoa, the mad ha’ra’ha from the previous book. He and Ellemoa, both from Arason, had a complicated love-hate relationship even before their imprisonment; it’s even more fraught now. They escaped their imprisonment separately: Kolan was one of the early survivors rescued by Eredion, while Ellemoa was released months later. Kolan, more or less recovered after time with the healers, and believing Ellemoa to be dead, just as Ellemoa believes that Kolan is dead, sets out on the road back to his home city of Arason. Several scenes revolve around his emotional and mental journey as he meanders along the Coast Road.
Ellemoa, rampaging through the city in search of her son, who was ripped from her at the time of her imprisonment, locates Idisio as soon as he enters Bright Bay. Unable to grab him immediately because of the danger of attacking Deiq and Alyea, she bides her time and eventually succeeds in luring Idisio out. She grabs him and flees the city, headed back to Arason, where she intends to train her son into his heritage as heir to the Arason ha’rethe. Several scenes revolve around her grief and fury at what happened to her, to Kolan, and to her son, as well as her failed attempts to recover her sanity.
Idisio, held under tight control until they are well clear of Bright Bay, surfaces to the realization that Deiq is not coming to save him and that he, alone, is not strong enough to defeat his insane, homicidal mother, who sees humans as little more than food. Unable to escape, he follows her more or less voluntarily, until they encounter Tank, who has hired on as a guard to Dasin, a local herbs and simple merchant. Tank, recognizing both Idisio as his old street-thief acquaintance and Ellemoa as a deadly danger, knocks Ellemoa out with a surprise attack. But Idisio refuses to leave her; he believes he’s the only thing stopping her from a murderous rampage throughout the villages, and begs Tank to return to Bright Bay and ask Deiq for help.
Tank agrees, abandons Dasin with hardly a word, and races back, only to find Deiq occupied with Alyea’s injuries; Tank is drawn in, and the sequence of his helping Alyea out of her trauma is replayed through his point of view. On returning to his employer, Dasin, with whom he has a complicated relationship, he finds that his abrupt departure sent Dasin into a self-destructive spiral; he pulls Dasin back to balanced, and they move into a more intimate relationship, driven by Tank’s guilt and desire to keep Dasin from spiraling again.
Meanwhile, Idisio is trying and failing to draw his mother back to sanity. Finally exasperated, she forces him into what she’s been trying to ease him towards doing: using his ha’ra’hain abilities to feed on the life energy of a human being. Then she abandons him as a disappointment. Waking, he is horrified at what he’s done, and realizes that Ellemoa will never stop. She’s chosen madness, and he’s the only one who can stop her.
Kolan and Ellemoa cross paths: both are astounded to find the other alive. Ellemoa, realizing that Kolan, of all the world, really understands her, and even forgives her, finally lets go of madness, stepping into Kolan’s arms with relief.
Idisio, coming up behind them, misunderstands and thinks Ellemoa is about to kill Kolan. He attacks, using the same method she’d just taught him, and pulls all the life force from her. Ellemoa, not entirely dead from the assault, retains enough sanity to tell Idisio to finish the job, that he’s right and she’s too dangerous to live. He does so, staggering as he realizes that he’s taken on her abilities and strength in the process. Kolan is horrified and heartbroken, but in the end pragmatic; he helps Idisio with a funeral pyre, and they decide to travel on to Arason together. The story is left there.
In Fires of the Desert (book four), as the various characters see small choices acquiring a lethal weight, mercy faces off with self-interest — and, more often than not, the very human survival imperative wins.
Brief synopsis: Now installed in rooms at the Palace rather than at Peysimun mansion, Deiq resumes training Alyea, with mixed results;. A true letter arrives from Idisio, catching Deiq up on recent events. Alyea discovers that her mother is trying get her removed from her new position as Head of Peysimun. She goes to confront her mother, and walks into an ambush — this time, one designed to lure Deiq into a trap. Deiq rushes in headfirst, teleports Alyea out of danger, then is captured and taken out of the city through a hidden teleportation tunnel.
Lord Eredion, afraid that Deiq might have crossed the line into madness in his rage, convinces Tank, one of the few people able to actually stop a rampaging ha’ra’ha, to accompany him to Peysimun Mansion. They find a scene of slaughter and destruction, but no Deiq. Eredion returns to the Palace to tell Alyea what he’d found, bringing Tank along with him. On seeing Tank, Alyea remembers their previous encounter; Eredion stops them from rekindling their connection on the spot, and sends Tank off to tell Dasin that he’ll be stuck in Bright Bay for a time. Meanwhile, Eredion and Alyea alert the king that Deiq might have gone mad and be about to rampage around Bright Bay even more destructively than Ellemoa.
On the way to meet with Dasin, Tank encounters a figure from his past: Teilo, a blind old woman who is much more than she seems. Tank only knows her, at this point, as the person who, years ago, trained him in how to turn his anger into a psychic weapon before tricking him into a suicide mission. Still furious about that, he rejects her, but tells her about Deiq’s situation before departing.
After the audience with the king, back in her apartments, Eredion, frustrated by Alyea’s ongoing inability to access some of her more critical desert lord abilities, feeds her a drug designed to help her open up. While she’s sleeping that off, Teilo comes to find him and tells him that Deiq isn’t in Bright Bay any longer, but was taken south through a hidden teleportation tunnel. Eredion goes to inform the king that his city is, after all, safe.
Tank returns to the Palace and Alyea’s rooms; wide-open from the drug Eredion gave her, she falls into instant connection and into bed with him. Eredion returns with the news that the king won’t help them any further in tracking Deiq down; he is horrified to find Alyea and Tank in bed together.
Tank, unrepentant but unwilling to help track down Deiq, heads off to his “ordinary” existence as a mercenary guard for Dasin. Eredion is unable to leave his own responsibilities, so Alyea sets off alone. She travels through the Horn and encounters four athain, who take her to the main citadel of the Horn. Unexpectedly, she is presented with Kippin, her captor from book two, who oversaw and participated in her abuse. He had fled just ahead of Deiq and Eredion’s assault, and had gone south in hopes of safety. The teyanain, however, picked him up as a criminal, and now are giving him to Alyea so that she can deliver justice herself.
Deiq, waking, find that he’s in the teyanain citadel. It turns out that a faction of the teyanain opposed to Lord Evkit were the ones to kidnap Deiq, intending to drive him to madness and unleash him on Lord Evkit’s forces. Lord Evkit managed to stop that plot, and stop Deiq. He uses Deiq’s earlier promise not to enter teyanain lands against him — even though it wasn’t Deiq’s choice to return. Deiq, reluctantly, agrees to hunt down those of the leaders of the teyanain rebellion who have fled beyond Lord Evkit’s reach.
When Deiq finds out that Kippin is present, he demands, on his right as elder ha’ra’ha, to mete out his own justice. He does so, then returns to Alyea’s side. She astonishes Deiq by asking him to marry her. He astonishes himself by agreeing. Lord Evkit is not pleased by the news, but when Alyea asks him to be the one to perform the ceremony, he sees yet another opportunity to advance his interests. He performs an elaborate ritual that binds Alyea and Deiq on a psychic level, which neither of them expected; Deiq is furious, believing he’s been restrained down to the extent of Alyea’s abilities. They leave on barely civil terms with one another and with Lord Evkit, returning to Bright Bay.
Meanwhile, Eredion has been faced with two political catastrophes: the discovery that Alyea’s own mother has been plotting against Alyea with Kippin, and a letter from the head of Sessin Family announcing that Eredion is being recalled and that his replacement is on the way. He turns Alyea’s mother over to the king’s justice. The new ambassador, Lord Fimre Sessin, also a desert lord, arrives in a flourish of self-importance and immediately begins to clash with everyone in sight, including Eredion. By the time Deiq and Alyea return, tensions are high.
Alyea must face off with her mother, who is not, in fact, her true mother; her father had an affair. Alyea is only legitimate because her father declared her as such and refused to give his lawful wife any children. Her “mother” has been nursing bitterness all these years, and only tolerated Alyea so long as she remained compliant. Alyea returning home with strong political and psychic powers has tipped bitterness to vengeance. Alyea asks the king to banish her “mother” to the Stone Islands rather than execute her.
Tank, on returning to where he left Dasin, finds a note that Dasin has left already. He follows to find Dasin on yet another self-destructive binge. He pulls Dasin out of a dangerous situation yet again, and gets him back on the road after several clashes.
Deiq seeks Eredion out to address a long standing wrong: during the teyanain wedding ceremony, Deiq realized that desert lords humans are forced to obey ha’ra’hain and ha’reye by means of a psychic “collar” installed during the trials. Teilo has already, secretly, removed Alyea’s collar, and Deiq feels honor bound to remove Eredion’s.
Back at the Palace, Deiq clashes with Fimre, injuring him badly. He nearly kills Eredion when he tries to intervene. Deiq pulls Alyea aside for a talk afterwards, and tells her that he has to leave and that it’s best she not know what he’s doing this time.
After his departure, Alyea, with Eredion and Fimre by her side, begins to transform Peysimun House into Peysimun Family, establishing herself as an independent entity despite clashes with the king.
Eredion, who has repudiated Sessin Family, works to train a much humbler Fimre. When Fimre is ready to take over, Eredion departs , headed north.
Deiq meets with Teilo, who is, in truth, older than and almost as powerful as Deiq himself. After exchanging information, they agree that they need to go to Scratha Fortress, where the situation is deteriorating. Rather than teleporting, they set out on different paths: Teilo walks into the ocean, while Deiq turns to seek out a ship to carry him south.
The story is left there.
In Servants of the Sands, choices have cascaded, masks are being abandoned, hidden powers step out of the shadows — and the secret war for humanity’s survival is laid open for all to see.
This book was originally issued as one volume, but later broken into two due to font size issues. The synopsis below includes the extra chapter added to the second edition.
Note: This is a very long, complicated story with an awful lot of alternating perspectives. I’ve made the synopsis as bare-bones as possible, leaving out a great deal, but it’s still a hefty read. If I was writing this today, I would have split it across three or maybe four books. Ah, hindsight…
And if I had to write a one-sentence summary of this book, it would run something along the lines of: A bunch of people making really bad decisions and blowing shit up.
Synopsis: This story once more begins in Scratha Fortress, just after the Conclave and shortly before Alyea’s departure. Several new character perspectives are introduced in this book. First up is Lord Azaniari (Azni), who can claim to be both Aerthraim Family and Darden Family — sort of. Aerthraim Family has long forbidden their people any involvement with ha’reye or ha’ra’hain, much less becoming a desert lord. They disowned Azaniari and her twin brother, Allonin, years ago. Meanwhile, Darden Family, who trained Azni as a desert lord in part to poke Aerthraim Family in the nose, then refused to officially claim Azni as one of their own.
Lord Irrio Darden, Regav’s brother, is the Darden Family representative for Scratha Conclave. He and Azni clash over the course of several scenes. He is besotted with her and hates himself for it, while she is fond of him and exasperated by him in roughly equal amounts.
Azaniari, for the sake of southern propriety, takes a kathain — a servant trained to address the unique needs of desert lords. She soon finds her chosen servant, Ishru, is even more complex than most kathain. He is, in fact, a katheele: combination spy, assassin, and seduction specialist. She wisely keeps his secret, and in turn, he devotes himself to her service — more completely than she realizes.
Cafad Scratha, meanwhile, is adjusting poorly to the demands of being bound to Scratha ha’rethe. Ha’reye, it turns out, much prefer to be left alone to doze, but Cafad’s black moods and chaotic temper are aggravating the creature. Forced to accept kathain of his own, Cafad gains some stability, but increasingly resents the way he’s being pushed into a figurehead position and how distressing information is kept from him. This is for everyone’s safety, and standard for bound lords, especially those as easily provoked as Cafad.
Gria’s aunt Sela, who has been an ongoing headache to everyone in reach, is politely evicted. Lord Azni escorts her to the border, then takes the time to survey Scratha lands; she is dismayed to find the land much drier than it should be. While investigating, she encounters a mysterious athain who claims not to serve Lord Evkit. He offers her power in exchange for allying with his specific faction; he also tells her that being at Scratha Fortress is not safe and that she in particular should get out as fast as she can. He vanishes without pressing her for a decision. She returns to the fortress, badly rattled.
An unexpected guest arrives: Nissa of Sessin, who is behind Cafad’s clash with King Oruen in the first book (Secrets of the Sands). Back then, Nissa was in a relationship with Cafad but hid her status as Sessin Family as well as the fact that Pieas Sessin was her twin. On discovering that his lover was a prominent member of a desert Family he especially hated, Cafad lost his temper and threw Nissa out into the street naked. The king hauled Cafad in for a royal scolding. Nissa was sent home in disgrace.
Now, with Scratha confirmed in a position of power, Sessin Family has decided to mend bridges by sending him Nissa to do with as he likes. It is made plain that anything goes, if it will bring peace between their Families. Cafad orders Nissa taken to guest quarters and allowed time and space to grieve her brother, whose remains have been put in a formal grieving room. Nissa’s presence unsettles Cafad further, and his kathain and advisors have to work even harder to calm him.
Cafad is also clashing repeatedly with Gria, the newly revealed heir to Scratha Family, over matters large and small. Sela’s departure has made Gria even more stubborn and obnoxious.
In an attempt to relieve some of the tensions, a dance is held to welcome Nissa of Sessin. Cafad stuns everyone by offering Nissa the prestigious post of daimaina: the equivalent to an unofficial marriage. Under Family custom, this leaves her the option of declining an intimate relationship while being in complete charge of the Fortress household, a position second only to the Head of Family. She accepts.
Meanwhile, Riss, who stayed behind when Idisio left, has been hearing voices, sleepwalking, and seeing things. That problem comes to a head during the dance, when the voice speaks to Lord Scratha: it is the resident ha’rethe, and it has been trying to tell Riss that it has chosen her, for some unknown reason, to join it as companion — a dubious honor and one-way trip. That revelation throws everything into chaos, but there is no escape: fleeing the fortress would infuriate the ha’rethe and put everyone resident in danger.
Lord Scratha has an epic meltdown from all the tension and has to be put to sleep. Lord Azni is sent, under the title of ambassador from Scratha Family, to re-establish the relationship between Aerthraim and Scratha Families. Her kathain, Ishru, insists on going with her. On the road, they encounter Lord Irrio, who is unwilling to let Azni go back to the family who disowned her without another desert lord for backup.
As it turns out, while that was a wise decision, Irrio is not up to the task: he, Azni, and Ishru are all taken prisoner on their arrival, their various abilities and Family connections proving to be insufficient protection. The head of Aerthraim Family, mahadrae Kallaisin, is murderously incensed not only by Azni’s return after she was told to never set foot on Aerthraim lands again, but by recent actions Allonin, Azni’s twin brother, has taken. In a frantic bid to save Azni from execution or worse, Lord Irrio swears loyalty to Aerthraim Family, the first desert lord to do so in hundreds of years. He is permitted to do so mainly from malice — to hurt and humiliate Azni — but also because it fits nicely into a generations-long Aerthraim plot to gain power at the expense of other Families.
The mysterious teyanain appears in Azni’s room, asking for her answer. On her agreeing to the alliance, he teleports her away, leaving Lord Irrio and Ishru to face the mahadrae’s wrath.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Azni and everyone at Scratha Fortress, Azni’s twin brother, Allonin, is on a quest along the eastern coast. He is dismantling a series of villages, called katha villages, which revolve around brothels of particularly evil preferences. His work puts him in direct defiance of the mahadrae’s plans, and rather than return to Aerthraim fortress to face her wrath, he travels to Bright Bay to meet his old friend, Lord Eredion Sessin. Eredion tells Allonin about the Conclave going on at Scratha Fortress, and that his twin sister is attending: Allonin, fearing that her muddled political status will put her in danger, sets off to find her. During his journey through the Horn, he encounters a line of chained slaves being driven to southern slave markets; about to pass them by, he recognizes another old friend of his, a thief named Lamb, in the line. Unable to convince the slave master to let his friend go, Allonin kills the slave master, frees the slaves, and takes Lamb and Tenny — a man Lamb claims as his brother — along with him as he resumes his travel south. On stopping at an inn, they are drugged and kidnapped; on awaking, Allonin finds himself in the teyanain citadel. Allonin is told that his own Family was behind the kidnapping, that the mahadrae is completely incensed by his desertion and wants him back, dead or alive, and that Lamb and Tenny have not yet been rescued.
Then Lamb and Tenny are recovered by the teyanain — not rescued: Tenny, using dark psychic powers nobody knew he possessed, has destroyed their captors, freeing himself and his brother. The teyanain tracking them promptly capture them again and bring them to the teyanain citadel for Lord Evkit to examine. Evkit quickly determines that Tenny’s abilities are not, in fact, his own, but the result of dark meddling by one of the people who enabled the Purge. Tenny knows a great deal he shouldn’t; Evkit, over Allonin’s protests, claims Tenny for himself in order to extract that information. Lamb and Allonin are forced to leave Tenny to his fate.
Meanwhile, Lord Evkit informs Allonin that his sister is now at Aerthraim Fortress. Allonin is absolutely horrified: he knows that the mahadrae won’t hesitate to torture or kill Azni, especially if it brings Allonin runing to save her. Evkit offers to put Azni under his protection, and to save her from the mahadae, if Allonin agrees to take the trials of a desert lord under teyanain auspices and swears to serve Lord Evkit for a time. Allonin is stunned to hear that there is a living ha’rethe under the Horn; everyone thought it had died long ago. He accepts the offer, as well as the further option to take only the last trial, in which he must gain the ha’rethe’s approval in order to be gifted the power of a desert lord.
When he faces the ha’rethe, however, he discovers that the creature is bound to Lord Evkit rather than the reverse. It is a slave. To give Allonin the powers of a desert lord, it would be forced to give him some of its limited energy, diminishing its strength further. His recent work along the eastern coast, and Lamb’s brief captivity, fresh in his mind, Allonin refuses to take the ha’rethe’s energy for himself,. He is unwilling to become a desert lord at that price. The ha’rethe, pleased by his refusal, voluntarily gives Allonin a much greater gift: the last piece of itself that isn’t bound to Lord Evkit’s service. This weakens the ha’rethe fatally, and the citadel begins to collapse as the creature releases its hold on the very stones.
Allonin escapes, with help from an unexpected ally: Lord Evkit’s estranged daughter, Cuna, who is delighted by the destruction and her father’s resulting loss of power. She was the one behind the attempt, in Fires of the Desert, to use Deiq as a weapon.
After rescuing Allonin, Cuna reveals that his sister, Azni, is in her company and service. After a brief reunion, they gather for a meeting between Cuna and her father, Lord Evkit, who has survived the disaster. Cuna challenges her father for control of the teyanain and wins.
After Lord Evkit’s departure, Allonin realizes that Lamb is still alive within the citadel. He teleports back in with his newfound powers but finds himself unable to teleport out. He is once more rescued by Cuna, who calls him a fool but helps him heal Lamb all the same.
Azni sets out, once more, as ambassador to Aethraim Family: this time in Cuna’s name, and with significant powers of her own to protect her. Allonin, unwilling to serve Cuna in any capacity, sits back to consider his next move while Lamb recovers.
Moving back in time and over to Deiq: at the end of the last book, he was headed south. As his tale picks up, Deiq is on a ship, pretending to be an ordinary deckhand. However, along the way, Teilo shows up, unexpectedly floating unconscious in the water. Deiq must abandon his disguise to rescue her and bring her back to wakefulness; she has been blocked from accessing her powers completely. Deiq then finds himself blocked from accessing his powers.
Three athain show up and tell them that the Forbidden Jungles, an area far to the south where most of the surviving ha’reye, ha’ra’hain, and their devotees live, are burning. Lord Evkit, it turns out, has long been plotting to remove the ha’reye from dominance, leaving himself as the only power with the backing of his own ha’rethe, which is entirely enslaved to his will. His plans are finally coming through. As part of that move, the athain convey Lord Evkit’s demand that Deiq and Teilo destroy Scratha ha’rethe; if they refuse, they will be destroyed themselves. As it turns out, during the wedding ceremony, Lord Evkit arranged the bond such that he now controls both of them.
Forced to agree, Teilo and Deiq are returned some control over their powers, and they continue on their way. As they are both unable to teleport as they are, they must travel on foot. As they climb the long Wall Stair that connects the high desert lands to the eastern coast, there is a massive explosion and the Wall begins to collapse around them. Realizing that, somehow, Alyea is involved, Deiq manages to teleport to the scene in spite of his restrictions.
Turning to Alyea: During a court function, Alyea abruptly finds herself behaving like a ha’ra’ha, to the point of wanting to drain the humans around her of their energy. She begins to attack the king, but Fimre manages to get her away from the court. She feeds on Fimre instead, nearly killing him in the process. When they recover, they are both arrested and thrown into prison.
Now to Idisio, who has been traveling Arason with Kolan. Idisio receives an urgent telepathic message from Lord Cafad Scratha, begging him to return and help him with a crisis; knowing he will need allies if the situation is that dire, he first seeks out Tank, who categorically refuses him, then Alyea, who he finds in prison. On stepping into Alyea’s cell, her new ha’ra’hain affinity, and the confined space, provokes a dominance clash. In order to avoid a fight, Idisio teleports all three of them elsewhere.
They wind up in teyanain territory: not Lord Evkit’s land, but that of his estranged daughter, Cuna. Cuna demonstrates an unexpected ability to control Idisio himself, and sends him off on an errand while she talks with Alyea about alliances. The conversation is interrupted by the arrival of her father, whose spies have picked up on Alyea’s arrival; Cuna and her people flee, and Lord Evkit takes her place, informing Alyea and Fimre that the teyanain have declared war against Aerthraim Family. Before he can explain the why of that decision, Idisio appears amongst them; he rejected the errand he was sent on and attempted to teleport out of the area, only to be caught in a psychic net and dumped at Lord Evkit’s feet.
Lord Evkit, after some discussion, sends them on their way; they are teleported to a spot midway up the Wall Stair. Alyea is aware that while she hadn’t intended to escape, the king has no way to know that, and will have seized all of her property in Bright Bay and issued an execution warrant on her. She decides that going south and claiming guest-right at Scratha Fortress is the only move she has left. Fimre refuses to follow, citing Cafad Scratha’s legendary hatred of Sessin Family, and they part in opposite directions: Idisio and Alyea south, Fimre north.
As they travel up the Wall Stair, Idiso’s presence draws the attention of a faereen, a particularly unstable form of ha’ra’ha. It pulls them into its lair and, on realizing that Idisio killed his own mother by drawing her energies from her, a deeply forbidden act, tries to kill Idisio in turn. The fight forces the faereen to pull its strength away from supporting the unstable cliff face nearby, and the Wall Stair begins to collapse.
Deiq, sensing Alyea’s presence as the cliff falls, manages to teleport to her location as the fight begins. The faereen is already badly damaged when he arrives, and tries to claim Teilo’s energies to heal itself. Teilo hits it hard, wounding it further. The faereen begs Deiq for aid; faced with a choice of who to save, Deiq kills the faereen. Idisio, in a blind panic, manages to teleport himself out of danger; he winds up in the tunnels he and Cafad walked in Secrets of the Sands. Deiq, in killing the faereen, comes close to dying himself. Alyea manages to heal him enough that she, Deiq, and Teilo can teleport out of the already collapsing cavern, arriving in the nearby tunnels not far from Idisio’s location.
Deiq realizes that Idisio is ahead of them, headed right for a nest of attiara, ancient and powerful servants bound to guard the teleportation tunnels. Idisio’s previous passage through this area, with Cafad Scratha, went unchallenged because Idisio had not yet fully claimed his heritage and Cafad was not a bound lord. With Idisio not only fully awakened, but carrying his mother’s life force, the attiara will most definitely attack him to fatal effect. Deiq, Teilo, and Alyea rush to intervene. In the resulting clash, Lord Evkit’s athain strike once more, tricking Deiq into binding the attiara to himself. This turns Deiq into an extraordinarily dangerous weapon under the control of Lord Evkit via the athain.
Leaving the tunnels, Deiq informs everyone that the recent battles have unbalanced him badly, and he needs healing that is only available from the ha’rethe beneath the Qisani, where Alyea, back in Secrets of the Sands, took her ha’rethe trial. Teilo, looking Deiq over, realizes that the bond Evkit created during the marriage ceremony is, in fact, not one that restrains Deiq to Alyea’s level of ability, but instead allows them to pool their abilities; Alyea is acting like a ha’ra’ha because she has access to Deiq’s power, and he can use her strength to supplement his own.
Once more, they are interrupted by the athain, who convey Lord Evkit’s latest command: to destroy the nest below the Qisani.
On arriving at the Qisani, they discover the place in chaos. The nest of ha’reye have rioted against the human inhabitants in the wake of Alyea’s trial; as it turns out, she was not supposed to survive, and by the time they realized she was gone, she was safely out of reach. In the following fight, Deiq teleports Idisio and Alyea out of the Qisani to protect them, then unleashes the attiara against the nest, successfully destroying it.
Alyea and Idisio wind up teleporting themselves into Scratha Fortress, where they discover a crisis is indeed in full swing. Riss has been given, with due ceremony, to Scratha ha’rethe as it demanded. In the aftermath, Cafad Scratha collapsed into a deep sleep, nearly a coma; when he resumed his duties, he came across a critically dangerous piece of information: his family was, in fact, slaughtered by its own ha’rethe it a fit of rage. He is knocked unconscious by an advisor before he can get angry enough to draw the attention of the ha’rethe, which is currently, contentedly, devouring Riss.
Idisio, appalled and enraged to find out about Riss, promptly races to stop the ha’rethe, abandoning Alyea. She, in turn, realizes that she has to kill Cafad Scratha in order to damage the ha’rethe enough for Deiq to destroy it.
Cafad wakes before she gets to him, but Deiq, who has left Teilo in the grasp of the released attiara, arrives at roughly the same time. Alyea, unwilling to kill Cafad after all, grabs him and teleports him off Scratha lands, which renders him insensate. She then returns to Scratha Fortress, where she, Deiq, and Idisio combined manage to hurt Scratha ha’rethe enough for Deiq to deal the finishing blow — which he does by absorbing the ha’rethe into itself, effectively binding himself to the fortress as its new protector.
Cafad is out of his head from backlash, the bulk of desert lord powers gone along with Scratha ha’rethe. He is brought to Bright Bay to heal and recover; Nissa goes with him. Alyea, with everyone’s agreement, takes over, and Scratha Family is renamed Peysimun Family. Deiq, with his vastly expanded powers, checks on his kin throughout the southlands and finds them all dead, critically wounded, or enslaved to humans; the Jungles are more or less razed to the ground, its population decimated and all the ha’reye dead. He declines to help the survivors, withdrawing instead to settle into his new role as protector of Peysimun Family, and finds unexpected peace and balance in so doing.
New Chapter, added in the two-volume second edition:
Idisio, returning battered and worn to Bright Bay as he once more heads for Arason, finds the city in chaos. The shockwaves of collapsing coastlines and isthmus has destroyed large sections of the city and set free creatures normally restrained from attacking humans. Idisio tells the king he will handle the issue, and does so; in the process, Idisio must face his own past as well as deal with the furious shade of his mother, who has taken up residence in his head and is attempting to control him. He masters his mother’s shade, sends the creatures back to their proper habitat, and meets with Cafad for a final farewell before leaving the southlands for good, fully confident in his ha’ra’hain powers and finally ready for his new life.
Notes: See what I mean? That was complicated as hell. Typing that all out really makes me wish I’d split it over three books at least, but I was impatient to finish the series and be done with it. Also, I’ll freely admit that my mom passed in 2017, which is when the first version of this book came out, and I was … not thinking clearly about stuff like that. I had it in my head to finish the book before she passed, and at least be able to put it in her hands even if she couldn’t read it. That didn’t happen, but I tried my best — unfortunately, at the expense of the book.
One of these days, I’d like to reissue this series, with corrections to mistakes like this that I made along the way. The only way I can afford to do that, though, would be with financial backing. I might create a Patreon for that purpose, but I have to clear a few other major projects off my desk first, including the sequel to Lies of Stone, book one of the Kingdom of Salt series, which picks up some years after the end of Servants of the Sands.
Side novellas and collections set in this world:
In Fallen City, a supplementary novelette best read, perhaps, after Guardians of the Desert, a bit of Deiq’s backstory is revealed, as is his involvement with the beginning of the Split that ultimately resulted in the desert Fortresses, distinct Families, and humanity turning from worship to fear of the ha’reye and ha’ra’hain.
In A Small Price to Pay, another supplementary novelette best read BEFORE Servants of the Sands, the reader gets a behind the curtain glimpse of the mysterious and dangerous world of the teyanain. What would Lord Evkit be like as a father? Read on and find out….
Salt City, which is, perhaps, best read before Servants of the Sands, explores the implosion of the Northern Church through the eyes of a young priest eager to excel–only to realize that the rules are being changed under his feet, and not in a good direction….
Nothing Changes is a collection of tales ranging from time travel to villain origin stories. It includes A Small Price to Pay, the added extra chapter of Servants of the Sands, and a look at the main characters of Lies of Stone, the first book in the sequel series, Kingdom of Salt, and notes on linguistics, among other stories and errata.
A writeup of Lies of Stone can be found here.
In-print titles can be purchased through the Shop.