Book excerpt: A novice sorcerer may hold the key to saving his world—or be the instrument of its destruction—in Mitchell Hogan's Blood of Innocents, the second book in The Sorcery Ascendant Sequence, a mesmerizing saga of high fantasy that combines magic, malevolence, and mystery. Anasoma, jewel of the Mahruse Empire, has fallen. As orphaned, monk-raised Caldan and his companions flee the city, leaving behind their hopes for a new beginning, horrors from the time of the Shattering begin to close in. With Miranda’s mind broken by forbidden sorcery, Caldan does the unthinkable to save her: he breaks the most sacrosanct laws of the Protectors. But when the emperor’s warlocks arrive to capture him, Caldan realizes that his burgeoning powers may be more of a curse than a blessing, and the enemies assailing the empire may be rivaled by more sinister forces within. And soon, the blood of innocents may be on Caldan’s own hands.