Cirrus@Austlit

'The Tainted Realm is the story of the remote island nation of Cythe, brutally colonised two thousand years ago by the Hightspallers, and of a realm forever tainted by the means they used to take the land. Cythe's history, art and culture were erased and its clever native people were reduced to despicable degradoes, on the verge of extinction when, without warning, they vanished. For fifteen hundred years they have lived underground in Cython, served by their Pale slaves, the descendants of noble Hightspaller children once given as hostages to Cython but never ransomed. For all this time, the Cythonians' lives have been shaped by the alchymical books called the Solaces, sorcerously bestowed upon them by an unknown benefactor. Now Hightspall is struggling under the weight of one natural disaster after another; its people feel that the very land is rising up against them. Then the last of the Solaces appears in Cython, the iron book called The Consolation of Vengeance, and the Cythonians know that it is time to take back their land. Only one person can prevent Hightspall from running with blood - a Pale slave called Tali who has just come of age. But Tali's four female ancestors were killed in the same brutal way and she knows she's next to die. To survive, and gain the justice she so desperately craves, she must escape Cython, though no slave ever has. And now the creator of the Solaces is hunting her.' (Author's website)