Identity Crisis: Mistaken for a spy, he loses his official identity and documents.
Political Intrigue: The Abbasid envoy’s order to hunt him down reaches Byzantium. This picks up after the first book, Stars and Moon Ablaze, in which Caliph al-Mansur purges his political rivals.
Storm of Faith: He is caught in the maelstrom of religious persecution during Byzantium’s iconoclast movement.
Caught in the Maelstrom of War: He is forced into Byzantium’s war against Bulgaria and its early clashes with Venice.
Survival and the Road Home: Struggling to survive amid the chaos of a foreign land, he searches for the faint possibility of returning to the East.
Follow the Tang dynasty traveler Du Huan as he recounts his journey home, and discover the turbulent world beyond China in the eighth century.
“Two Eagles” refers to the Abbasid Empire, often symbolized by falcons, and the Byzantine Empire, whose emblem was the double-headed eagle. “Vast Blue” refers to the broad Mediterranean or Black Sea, and also symbolizes the stormy waves stirred up by the collision of the two empires.
