To Weave the Wind — Sharon Rose

Only the powerfully gifted new ambassador can save the underground province. Or so they believe until she arrives. Dirklan Province is owed a royal ambassador. What they desperately need is a powerful streamer to restore the trade cataracts. Fanteal should provide both, for they've heard of her amazing gift. Fanteal soon discovers that she will be more of a pawn than an ambassador. Worse yet, as crowds cheer her arrival, she collapses from a mysterious illness. Rumors spread that something is wrong with her gift. Had their old prime minister lied? Why? The new prime minister's son, Jaikon, becomes Fanteal's unwilling champion. He alone saw her gift manifest. Didn't he? His already shaky reputation will never recover if she possesses the wrong gift. Fanteal must learn what secrets the last prime minister took to his grave. What did he know about wind weavers and this so-called illness? But her visit to his private library just spawns more questions, and it ends with a disastrous public challenge of her gift. Now everyone knows the truth-or thinks they do. Trade will fail and severe poverty will follow. Yet Fanteal and Jaikon know there is a far more dangerous truth lurking in their underground world. To Weave the Wind is the second story in the Arts of Substance trilogy. Each stand-alone novel explores one of the world's three substance gifts: forming, wind weaving, and streaming. With every ability comes risk. The gifts are neither easy nor safe. Who has the courage and wit to use their gift well? And at what cost?