Book excerpt: FROM THE RUINS, A HERO WILL RISE Condemned as a murderer for killing the man who dishonored his sister, Blaine McFadden has been banished for years to a penal colony in the frigid northern wastelands of Edgeland. Military discipline and the oppressive magic of the governor's mages keep a fragile peace, as colonists struggle to survive in the harshest of conditions. But now the supply ships have stopped coming, and this bodes ill for the kingdom that banished the colonists . . . McFadden and the other exiles must decide their fate. They can remain in their icy prison, or they can return to the ruins of the kingdom that they once called home. Either way, destruction lies ahead . . .