Promise of Blood (powder Mage, #1)

The first installment of the Powder Mage Trilogy is set in Adro, a nation resembling early 19th-century Europe where flintlock firearms coexist with two rival forms of sorcery: Privileged, who manipulate elemental forces through runed gloves, and powder mages, who can ingest or ignite gunpowder to enhance their senses, strength, and marksmanship. A third, lesser category, the Knacked, possess a single extraordinary talent.

On a fog-choked night, retired police inspector Adamat is summoned to Skyline Palace, where he finds the king's elite Hielmen guards absent and one lying dead. Field Marshal Tamas, commander of the Adran military, has overthrown King Manhouch XII, slaughtering the royal cabal of Privileged sorcerers and capturing the king. Tamas explains that Manhouch was about to sign the Accords, a treaty making Adro a vassal of the neighboring nation of Kez. The Kez also executed Tamas's wife, Erika, and Manhouch did nothing. Tamas hires Adamat, whose Knack is a perfect memory, to investigate a phrase the dying Privileged uttered: "You can't break Kresimir's Promise." Kresimir is the god said to have founded the Nine Nations over 14 centuries ago.

Five powder mages die during the coup when an unaccounted-for Privileged woman emerges from the Beadle's private brothel and kills them before fleeing. Manhouch attempts to shoot Tamas in the chapel, but Tamas absorbs the powder blast and sentences the king, his queen, and hundreds of nobles to execution. Before an enormous crowd, Manhouch is beheaded.

Tamas's son, Taniel Two-Shot, a celebrated powder mage, arrives in Adopest from the distant continent of Fatrasta with Ka-poel, a mute Dynize girl who is a Bone-eye, a Dynize sorcerer whose power operates through wax dolls and physical traces. Tamas orders Taniel to hunt the escaped Privileged alongside Julene, a Privileged mercenary, and Gothen, a magebreaker who can nullify sorcery.

Nila, a young laundress in a noble household, smuggles her master's sickly five-year-old son Jakob out of the townhouse during the mass arrests. Adamat sends his family to a safe house and begins investigating Kresimir's Promise. At Adopest University, he discovers that key theology books have had pages destroyed by sorcery, systematically eliminating references to the Promise.

Tamas's council of coconspirators gathers to govern: Ricard Tumblar, head of the workers' union; Ondraus the Reeve, the city's chief accountant; Arch-Diocel Charlemund, head of the Kresim Church; Lady Winceslav, owner of the Wings of Adom mercenary company; the Proprietor's eunuch, representing the criminal underworld; and Prime Lektor, Vice-Chancellor of Adopest University. Olem, a Knacked sergeant who never needs sleep, is appointed Tamas's bodyguard.

Taniel tracks the rogue Privileged to General Westeven, the legendary retired captain of the Hielmen, who has rallied royalist forces and barricaded the city center. Royalists disguised as citizens attack Tamas at the House of Nobles; Taniel, his estranged fiancée Vlora (also a powder mage), and Olem help repel them. Sabon, Tamas's Deliv powder mage and close friend, arrives with reinforcements. A parley with Westeven collapses when air rifles open fire; Julene shields Tamas, but one of her fireballs accidentally kills Westeven. Tamas employs the Black Street Barbers, a gang of assassins, to eliminate the remaining royalist leaders. When the barricades fall, soldiers tear Jakob from Nila's arms.

Adamat infiltrates the Public Archives and encounters the rogue Privileged, Rozalia, who asks him to carry a message to Privileged Borbador, known as Bo, at Shouldercrown, the mountain fortress guarding South Pike. Bo, the last surviving member of the royal cabal, explains Kresimir's Promise: Kresimir promised the original kings their bloodlines would rule forever, and if any line were ended by violence, he would return and destroy the nation. Bo dismisses the legend as superstition but is terrified by Rozalia's message: "She will try to summon Kresimir." Adamat further discovers that a gaes, a magical compulsion tied to a demon's carbuncle gem, will eventually force Bo to avenge the dead king by killing Tamas or die trying.

Taniel confronts Rozalia at Adopest University in a battle that destroys multiple buildings. Gothen is killed when Rozalia overwhelms his nullifying abilities. Rozalia identifies herself as one of the Predeii, an ancient caste of sorcerers who originally summoned Kresimir to the world, and warns Taniel to beware Julene. A mysterious chef named Mihali appears at Tamas's headquarters, claims to be the god Adom reincarnated, and begins creating food from nothing. Tamas dismisses the claim but recognizes Mihali's practical value.

Tamas orders Taniel to kill Bo before the gaes compels Bo to assassinate him. Taniel climbs South Pike with Ka-poel but cannot bring himself to shoot his best friend. A massive cave lion attacks; it is actually Julene in shapeshifted form, revealing her as a Predeii. Bo's sorcery, Taniel's bullets, and Ka-poel's magic combine to drive the creature off the mountainside. Bo explains that Julene seeks to summon Kresimir using the Kez royal cabal so she can rule the Nine in his wake. The entire Kez Grand Army, close to a million soldiers, masses below Shouldercrown, and the siege begins.

A Kez Warden, an elite enemy operative, infiltrates Tamas's headquarters and nearly kills him. Tamas declares that one of his council members has betrayed him and assigns Adamat to find the traitor. Lord Vetas, a sinister agent of an unknown master, kidnaps members of Adamat's family and forces the inspector to serve as a double agent. Tamas confronts Duke Nikslaus, the Kez ambassador who beheaded Tamas's wife, triggering open war with Kez. During a hunting party, Nikslaus captures Tamas and inserts a gold sliver into his leg, nullifying his powers. Olem tracks Tamas using Tamas's wolfhound Hrusch, secretly trained by Sabon, and rescues him in a violent ambush.

At Shouldercrown, Taniel uses redstripe bullets, rounds charmed by Ka-poel to pierce Privileged shields, and kills over a dozen Kez Privileged. He discovers that sapper tunnels have been bored through the mountain not to undermine the fortress but to bypass it, allowing Julene and the remaining Kez forces to reach Kresim Kurga, the ruined Holy City at South Pike's summit.

Adamat identifies Charlemund as the traitor after the Barbers, hired through Charlemund's servant, attempt to assassinate both Adamat and Mihali during the Saint Adom's Festival. Mihali reveals his true divine power, destroying every Barber in the square. Prime Lektor reveals himself as a Predeii and confirms Mihali is genuinely Adom reborn. Tamas assaults Charlemund's villa but walks into an ambush; Sabon is killed by a sniper. Tamas defeats Nikslaus in a duel, shooting through both the duke's hands to destroy his Privileged gloves, then kills Charlemund in a swordfight. Nikslaus escapes. Lord Vetas kidnaps Jakob and forces Nila, who had infiltrated the House of Nobles intending to kill Tamas, to serve as the boy's caretaker.

Taniel's company fights up the mountain to the ruins of Novi's Perch monastery, where a surviving monk named Del volunteers to guide them into the Kresim Caldera, the volcanic crater containing the ruined Holy City. Del turns out to be a disguised Kez Privileged who delivers them into Julene's trap. Ka-poel decimates the remaining Kez sorcerers with her wax dolls. From a palace balcony six miles away, Taniel fires two redstripe bullets at Kresimir as the god descends from the sky. Burning through his entire powder horn, Taniel strikes Kresimir in the eye and heart. The god's body crumples, and the mountain begins to collapse.

In the epilogue, Tamas receives the survivors near the erupting volcano. Shouldercrown has been destroyed, but all defenders have been evacuated. Taniel and Ka-poel are alive but comatose. Bo, still bound by the gaes, warns: "You can't kill a god." Tamas sits beside his unconscious son and vows to invade Kez, confront Kresimir, and teach him about justice. The story continues in The Crimson Campaign.