Centuries ago, the peasants of Loran killed their king. The more powerful classes--lords, priests, and merchants--exacted revenge by stripping the lowborn of their seats in the Worthy Assembly, where subjects make laws with the crown. Consumed by unchecked greed and corruption, Loran now teeters on a knife's edge . . . and there is no end to the terror and injustice visited on Commoners. As the priestking's loyalists ruthlessly seize peasant children and plot their coup, Jason Warchild sees a war coming--a war he means to prevent. Aided by his cunning sister and traitor uncle, the bastard prince enters a deadly tournament to claim his crown, unite the land against his family's enemies--and return peasants to power for the first time in hundreds of years. Amid tournament politics and threats of violent revolution, two children embark on quests that will shake the kingdom to its core. One, a boy hostage, accompanies a sorcerer to confront an ancient evil sowing the seeds of strife. The other, a peasant girl, stakes her soul on a gambit to raise her father from the dead. Lord, knight, hostage, peasant: the fires will engulf them all in the fight for a voice in their own rule.