The Four Empires
(Female Protagonist: Since the story is more male-oriented, this story caters to a general audience. This book is of a series, with other installments featuring male protagonists, and a few with female protagonists.)
…
At first, El was just a seven-year-old girl, surviving in a war-torn village steeped only in the air of misery and the stench of death.
She was far from ordinary though – for her fragmented memories made it difficult to remember many things, yet they gifted her an uncanny intelligence.
With only a few tattered books from a crumbling, wooden library, she taught herself how to read, clinging to knowledge as her only solace.
She believed her fate was sealed, destined to die like other children who succumbed to illness or starvation, then left her here alone.
But everything changed the day her village was attacked by unknown people. The invaders slaughtered everyone, yet for reasons she couldn’t fathom, they left her alive.
When El awoke under the pale light of the full moon, the attackers returned, searching for what they called "a breath that was left."
Helpless, she was captured. What followed was a blur – six years of her life erased from memory. She woke up again, her head bandaged, in the care of a mysterious man who brought her to Mirthwater, a city in one of the Four Vassal States of the Ryxhaton Empire.
Then without so much of an explanation, he abandoned her there.
Left to fend for herself, El navigated the harsh underside of Mirthwater, while haunted by dreams of the unknown she couldn’t make sense of.
But her quiet struggle for survival suddenly took a dark turn when she stumbled into a brewing conflict hidden within the city’s shadows.
Unwittingly thrust into a world of danger, she found herself face-to-face with creatures born from humanity’s darkest desires and worst nightmares.
Now, El’s must confront the horrors lurking in the depths of Mirthwater and uncover the truth about her past – before it consumes all of hers.
…
