Master of Sorrows

Master of Sorrows is an epic fantasy novel by Justin T. Call. It is the first volume in a planned 4 book arc of  the 12 book series The Lore of Luquatra. The main viewpoint of this novel is that of protagonist Annev de Breth, with the addition of a few interspersed excerpts from in-universe historical and religious texts.

Plot Overview
''The Academy of Chaenbalu has stood against magic for centuries. Hidden from the world, acting from the shadows, it trains its students to detect and retrieve magic artifacts, which it jealously guards from the misuse of others. Because magic is dangerous: something that heals can also harm, and a power that aids one person may destroy another.''

Of the Academy's many students, only the most skilled can become Avatars – warrior thieves, capable of infiltrating the most heavily guarded vaults – and only the most determined can be trusted to resist the lure of magic.

More than anything, Annev de Breth wants to become one of them.

But Annev carries a secret. Unlike his classmates who were stolen as infants from the capital city, he was born in the small village of Chaenbalu, was believed to be executed, and then unknowingly raised by his parents' killers.

Seventeen years later, Annev struggles with the burdens of a forbidden magic, a forgotten heritage, and a secret deformity. When he is subsequently caught between the warring ideologies of his priestly mentor and the Academy's masters, he must choose between forfeiting his promising future at the Academy or betraying his closest friends. Each decision leads to a deeper dilemma, until Annev finds himself pressed into a quest he does not wish to fulfil.

Will he finally embrace the doctrine of his tutors, murder a stranger, and abandon his mentor?

''Or will he accept the more difficult truth of who he is. . . and the darker truth of what he may become. . .''

Synopsis
In Chaenbalu, the village priest Sodar has been waiting outside of a birthing tent along with Ancient Tosan. When they are finally let in, he goes to bless the mother Aegen, and her newborn, after a long and hard labor, while Tosan is taken aside by his wife Lana who had assisted the birth. When Sodar reaches Aegen however, she is not breathing and to his horror it is revealed that the witwomen that had assisted her, killed Aegen for having carried a son of Keos and by extension then, being a vessel of Keos that must be broken. Tosan shows Sodar the baby disgusted as, even though his eyes are bright blue (a mark of blessing from the god Odar), the child has only one hand. Lana and Tosan declare the child is to be left to the beasts of Keos in the Breakwood forest, and the child’s father Tuor must be broken as well as he is another vessel of Keos. Sodar berates himself for not having been there to protect Aegen and scrambles to find a way to save the child and his father, concluding that he can’t protect both, just as Tuor enters the tent and mourns his wife. In a moment of shared silent understanding with him, Sodar then swears to look after the child and goes to follow the two witwomen that are carrying the infant away. Meanwhile Tuor is killed by the other villagers and avatars.

Later, in a clearing of the Breakwood, Lana and Kelga are keeping vigil over the crying baby from a distance, to make sure he is taken by the beasts. Lana is suspicious of Kelga’s insistence to accompany her in the vigil as she is a selfish and solitary old woman. Unable to fight a mounting sense of dread and wrongness, Lana feigns sleep as the older woman becomes restless and eventually disappears out of sight. When Kelga returns she is at Lana’s back and reveals that she is a servant of Death. In an ensuing fight Kelga injures Lana while the younger witwoman throws fungal spores in Kelga’s face resulting in the old woman going blind. Realising that Kelga means to save the child, Lana tries to reach him and kill him, but he is no longer where she’d left him. Kelga continues to blindly fight with Lana eventually pushing her into a blackthorn copse which is deadly. When the blind woman is unable to find the child in turn, she tries to torture the dying Lana thinking she was the one to take him away. Sodar however intervenes and knocks Kelga out with his staff while holding the baby in his other arm. Lana calls to the priest to help her and warn the academy that Daughters of Keos have infiltrated it, but Sodar refuses. He explains that the now blind Kelga is unable to find the village again and so she is harmless, but that he cannot let Lana live and condemn the child. He looks down on her as Lana dies of blood loss.

First History of the Gods Interlude.
17 years later,

Trivia

 * Master of Sorrows saw its first outline and draft as part of Call's thesis for his ALM in Literature and Creative Writing from Harvard. The original title of that was The Hand of Keos.