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Fantasy. Fiction. HTML: It is the season of war. As the plum blossom winds herald spring in the Empire of Wa, Initiate Brother Shuyun, spiritual advisor to Lord Shonto, the military governor of the northernmost province of Seh, receives a shocking message from the barbarian lands. The massive army of the Golden Khan is poised at their border. Forced to retreat south, Lord Shonto is caught between the pursuing barbarian hordes and his own hostile emperor's Imperial Army. Meanwhile, the beautiful young Lady Nishima again becomes involved in court intrigue as well as in a dangerous romantic liaison. Even as this trap closes on Shonto and his allies, Brother Shuyun faces a crisis of his own. For in the same scroll that warned of the invasion was a sacred udumbara blossom, a sign his order has awaited for a thousand years, a sign that the Great Teacher has finally been reborn. And now it may fall to one young monk with extraordinary powers to save his empire..… (more)
User reviews
War closes in on the Empire from within and without, the maddened Emperor refuses to see the trap he has built for himself and nearly takes the entire empire down with him. However the sheer genius and tactical
Excitement, intrigue, love, war, and the game of the Imperial Courts...when foes become friends and House Shonto must defend the empire against the Emperor's "allies" before the empire is crushed by barbarian hordes, choices must be made that will rock the Bothivist faith to its foundations.
Surrounded by war and his own tumultuous emotions, the young monk finally discovers the truth behind his name, his destiny, and all of the doubts he had picked up in his relationships with the senior monks of his order. Now a sole practitioner of a sect that had been destroyed as heretic centuries before he arrives at the feel of the new Master, one who has affected the course of his life and those of the family he loves.
Sean Russel blurs the line between enlightenment and deceit, nirvana and blasphemy in this conclusion to Nishima and Shyun's story. The ending is perhaps one of the most hopeful, yet bittersweet endings I have read in a long time.