Chronicles of the Cheysuli

Shapechangers. They were the Cheysuli, a race of magical warriors gifted with the ability to assume animal shape at will. For centuries they had been allies to the King of Homana, treasured champions of the realm. Until a king’s daughter ran away with a Cheysuli liege man and caused a war of annihilation against the Cheysuli race. Twenty-five years later the Cheysuli were hunted exiles in their own land, feared for their sorcery, their shapechanging.

For five long years the land of Homana had been strangling in the grasp of a usurper king—its people ravaged by strife, poverty and despair; its magical race, the Cheysuli, forced to flee or face extermination at the hands of their evil counterparts, the sorcerous Ilhini. The time had come for Prince Carillon, Homana's rightful ruler, to return from exile with his Cheysuli liege man, free his land from the evil domination of the tyrant Bellam and his villainous magicians, restore the Cheysuli to their rightful position of grace, and claim his birthright.

For decades, the magical race of shapeshifters called the Cheysuli have been feared and hated exiles in their own land, a land they rightfully should rule. Victims of a vengeful monarch's war of annihilation and a usurper king's tyrannical reign, the Cheysuli clans have nearly vanished from the world. Now in the aftermath of the revolution which overthrew the hated tyrant, Prince Donal is being trained as the first Cheysuli in generations to assume the throne. But will he be able to overcome the prejudice of a populace afraid of his special magic and succeed in uniting the realm?

Niall, Prince of Homana, key player in a prophecy that spans generations, should have been the treasured link between Cheysuli and Homanan. Yet neither of the peoples he is destined to someday rule feel anything but suspicion of Niall. Homanans fear him for his Cheysuli heritage, while Cheysuli refuse to accept him as their own because he has acquired neither a lir-shape nor the lir companion which is the true mark of the Cheysuli shapechangers.And now, despite his precarious situation within the kingdom, Niall must undertake a journey to fulfill yet another link in the ancient prophecy.

Brennan, Hart and Corin were the three Cheysuli sons of Niall, ruler of Homana, and the next link in the generations-old prophecy of the Firstborn. Now the time had come for all three to take the paths for which they were fated: Brennan, heir to the throne of Homana, would face the menance of unknown assassins and trecherous Ihlini magic.

Aidan, only child of Brennan and Aileen, and the grandson of Niall, is heir to the Lion Throne of Homana and inheritor, too, of a prophecy carried down through the generations and finally on the verge of fulfillment. But will Aidan, driven as he is by strange visions and portens, prove the weak link in the ages-old prophecy—the Cheysuli who fails to achieve his foretold destiny?

Nearly a century has passed since the Prophecy of the Firstborn was set in motion—the generational quest to recreate the magical race which once held sway in the lands ruled by Homana's Mujar. Now, Kellin, heir to Homana's throne, has only to sire an offspring with an Ihlini woman to reach this goal. But Kellin wants nothing of prophecy, nor even of his own magical heritage. Embittered by tragedy, he refuses the sacred lir-bonding, becoming anathema in the eyes of his Cheysuli kin.