The Great Sheng had stood for three hundred years, wealthy beyond compare, yet its people had grown soft to the core. The Northern invaders of Dayan swept south on iron hooves. The old capital fell, the two emperors were taken north, and the Son of Heaven fled south, intent only on making peace. A letter of surrender was about to be signed with the words "Your subject, so-and-so, submits." In the imperial court, a powerful minister held the reins of state and the suspicious ruler would rather lose half the realm than let a single general win a battle.
But on the eve of the dynasty's fall, when everyone was on their knees begging to survive, seventeen young people who neither trusted nor respected one another, and were even sworn enemies, each held something the country needed to stay alive. They came from the border army, the maritime trade, the martial world, the palace walls, and the occupied north. Their first fight would not be against the barbarians, but against the corrupt ruler and his powerful minister. They were not united, and every one of them was ready to draw a blade against the others.
There was only one thing they had in common: none of them would accept their fate.
(A story about a kingdom on its knees, lifted back up by seventeen pairs of hands. This is the first of three books in the series.)
