Books by James Islington

My job, when you think about it, isn't so different from a lot of people's. The more old-fashioned crowd do still get hung up on the 'killing people' part of it, I guess, but that's a them problem: it's been perfectly legal to take out lifers for ages. Besides, once ultrawealthy morons realised they had a way to live forever - limited resources be damned - there was only ever going to be one genuinely practical deterrent. So, sure, I have to deal with a tonne of boring planning. Inconvenient hours. Some pretty awkward face-to-face interactions. And like most of us, I'm really only clocking in to try and crawl out from beneath my debts. But someone's got to do it. Luckily, my genetic compatibilities make me really, *really* good at doing it. Still. This next job . . . I don't know. It's something I haven't had to deal with in years. Kind of the opposite of my regular duties. Strange, that it got thrown my way. I'm sure it'll all go totally fine though.

Omne trium perfectum The Hierarchy still call me Vis Telimus. Still hail me as Catenicus. They still, as one, believe they know who I am. But with all that has happened-with what I fear is coming-I am not sure it matters anymore. I am no longer one. I won the ludicium and lost everything- and now, impossibly, the ancient device beyond the Labyrinth has replicated me across three separate worlds. A different version of myself in each of Obiteum, Luceum, and Res. Three different bodies, three different lives. I have to hide; fight; play politics. I have to train; trust; lie. I have to kill; heal; prove myself again, and again, and again. I am loved, and hated, and entirely alone. Above all, though, I need to find answers before it's too late. To understand the nature of what has happened to me and why. I need to find a way to stop the coming Cataclysm, because if all I have learned is true, I may be the only one who can.

The Catenan Republic—the Hierarchy—may rule the world, but they do not know everything. I tell them my name is Vis Telimus. I tell them I was orphaned three years ago, and that only good fortune has got me into their most prestigious school. I tell them that, when I graduate, I will allow my strength and drive—what they call Will—to be leeched away and added to the power of those above me, as everyone must do. I tell them that I belong, and they believe me. But the truth is that I have been sent to the Academy to solve a murder. To search for an ancient weapon. To uncover secrets that may tear the Republic apart. And that I will never cede my Will to the empire that executed my family. To survive, though, I will have to rise through the Academy's ranks, and win. Because if I cannot, those who know my real name will no longer have any use for me. And if the Hierarchy finds out who I truly am, they will kill me.

It has been twenty years since the end of the war. The dictatorial Augurs—once thought of almost as gods—were overthrown and wiped out during the conflict, their much-feared powers mysteriously failing them. Those who had ruled under them, men and women with a lesser ability known as the Gift, avoided the Augurs' fate only by submitting themselves to the rebellion's Four Tenets. A representation of these laws is now written into the flesh of any who use the Gift, forcing those so marked into absolute obedience. As a student of the Gifted, Davian suffers the consequences of a war fought—and lost—before he was born. Despised by most beyond the school walls, he and those around him are all but prisoners as they attempt to learn control of the Gift. Worse, as Davian struggles with his lessons, he knows that there is further to fall if he cannot pass his final tests. But when Davian discovers he has the ability to wield the forbidden power of the Augurs, he sets into motion a chain of events that will change everything. To the north, an ancient enemy long thought defeated begins to stir. And to the west, a young man whose fate is intertwined with Davian’s wakes up in the forest, covered in blood and with no memory of who he is…