Nagaro Chronicle Series

Gift of Chance begins the saga of a man whose world will come to know him as Nagaro, meaning “Nameless Man.” Not quite eighteen, he flees from something “better not remembered” and his memories are hidden from him. A family of fisher-folk take him in and he seeks to build a new life as a fisherman while relearning the ways of his world. But disturbing dreams soon prompt him to try to unlock his memory and discover what was done to him. He gets glimpses of a quietly idyllic life that was shattered by powerful men bent on controlling him for reasons he can only guess at. By the time the veil is fully lifted from his mind, he and his friend Taru have been captured by sea raiders and chained to oars on an enemy war galley. Now he must find a way to regain his freedom while keeping his past a secret. For the powerful men who hurt him must think him dead, and he means to keep it that way.

The Nagaro Chronicle fantasy saga tells the story of a man whose world comes to know him as Nagaro. Raised in obscurity by a noble lady, his idyllic life was shattered at seventeen by powerful men bent on controlling him for reasons he could only guess at. Enslaved by a will-controlling drug, he was forced to marry Edrovir’s princess and his drugged behavior earned him the derisive title “idiot prince.” From this bondage he escaped by unknown means only to be captured by warriors from the neighboring Mahuk Baar and chained to the oar of a war galley. After he uses his gift for swordsmanship to lead his fellow slaves to freedom, his experiences set him on a life-course of opposing slavery and injustice as the “noble pirate” Captain Nagaro. Despite his growing fame, he is determined to keep his past a secret in order to escape the psychic trauma of his drug-ordeal and the clutches of enemies who must believe him dead. In this fourth book of the Nagaro Chronicle, Nagaro has accepted a captain’s commission in the Royal Fleet of Edrovir, believing it offers him a chance to save more galley slaves from death by working with Kuran, the Lord of the Fleet, forcing the surrender of marauding Mahuk warships rather than sinking them. He arrives in Lankura with his friends Taru and Pavo, two of his ships, and half his pirate followers in tow. All the men are sworn into Fleet service and Nagaro soon finds there are unexpected pleasures and hazards in his new position. He does temporary duty as Fleet sword master, rediscovers his boyhood home, deepens his friendship with Princess Nevien, and runs afoul of Edrovir’s greatest swordsman, Lothard Hurn. Then he tries his hand at international diplomacy and things get really dicey. He finds himself facing Edroviran politics head-on – not to mention Emperor Baalkir. Lives are at stake, including his own and that of his devoted Mahuk-born friend Pavo.

Nagaro and his friends Taru and Pavo are living secretly in a kind of voluntary exile within the territorial waters of Edrovir, waiting for the young Leithian who betrayed the attack on the Mahuk capital to find his conscience or his courage. Nagaro tries not to think about the past or the future, but when his six-year-old daughter is abducted from her island home, he knows he must go after her. He quickly finds himself plunged back into the maelstrom of Edrovir’s capital where he must deal with a dying queen, his own impossible love, and a political storm that is rapidly brewing around a mysterious young man whom many Kelorin believe to be the son of the murdered King Tevren and heir of the near-legendary first king of Edrovir, Darion the Great.

A tenuous peace holds in Edrovir in the weeks since Nagaro prevented Lothard Hurn, the most ruthless and ambitious scion of the Leithian Faction, from killing the Kelorin Faction’s miss-identified heir to the great King Darion. Nagaro’s focus is on giving what support he can to Princess Nevien as she again faces an unappealing array of suiters vying for her hand - and for the crown. On the surface, all is calm, but disquieting evidence begins to emerge of clandestine dealings among the members of Lothard’s sub-faction, the fanatically traditionalist Brothers of the Blood - dealings that link the Brothers both to illegal trade in the will-controlling drug heskial, and to Dreigen, King Elgurn’s sinister Lore Master. This politically sensitive situation is being investigated by Nagaro’s commander, Kuran, the Lord of the Royal Fleet. Nagaro tries to distance himself from the investigation, not wishing to further antagonize Lothard or to cross paths with his old nemesis, Dreigen, but he has come to the attention of the Brothers of the Blood, and they have other plans.