Blood, the Phoenix and a Rose — Storm Constantine

The next night, there were three of them, and they weren't standing in a corner. They were hanging from the ceiling by their hair and were beyond staring at me, or doing anything else.

Wraeththu, a race of androgynous beings, have arisen from the ashes of human civilisation. Like the mythical rebis, the divine hermaphrodite, they represent the pinnacle of human evolution. But Wraeththu - or hara - were forged in the crucible of destruction and emerged from a new Dark Age. They have yet to realise their full potential and come to terms with the most blighted aspects of their past.

Blood, the Phoenix and a Rose begins with an enigma: Gavensel, a har who appears unearthly and has a hidden history. He has been hidden away in the house of Sallow Gandaloi by Melisander, an alchemist, but is this seclusion to protect Gavensel from the world or the world from him? As his story unfolds, the shadow of the dark fortress Fulminir falls over him, and memories of his past slowly return. The only way to find the truth is to go back through the layers of time, to when the blood was fresh.

Evidence is subjective and interpretation creates conflicting memories. A stand-alone trilogy of connected novellas, 'Song of the Cannibals', 'Half Sick of Shadows' and 'A Pyramid of Lions' are witness accounts, one of them from Gavensel himself, that bring light to one of the darkest corners of Wraeththu history.