Inda — Sherwood Smith

THE FATE OF THE SAECOND SON

Indevan-Dal was the second son of the Prince of Choraed Elgaer. Tradition dictated that when his older brother Tanrid inherited the realm, Inda would be his brother's Shield Arm -- his military champion. Tanrid,'as heir, attended the King's Military Academy in the royal city, a privilege which Inda, a youth with natural military talent, envied greatly. But like all second sons, Inda was to be privately trained at home by the brother whose lands he would one day protect.

Only in times of impending war, would the second sons join their older brothers in the royal city, to be trained as captains of the king's armies. So when the King's Voice summoned Inda to the King's Academy, he might well have felt foreboding or even fear -- war was coming. Yet youthful Inda felt only excitement.

But when Inda got to the royal city, he found that there were things that Tanrid hadn't prepared him for -- for feuds, infighting, and political factions divided the nobility, and found physical, often painful expression among the students.

Most perplexing was the abuse heaped on Inda's closest friend -- the boy known as Sponge. Inda and all of Sponge's other companions were the recipients of the cruelest treatment possible by the other boys. And the oddest part of all was that Sponge was the king's own second son.

But the efforts to sabotage Sponge's friends were only a faint shadow of what was to come for Inda. For his future would hold betrayals he couldn't even imagine, and before he grew to manhood, his fate would sever him from all he held dear, and thrust him away from friends, family, and the life he thought he'd been meant to live, onto the perilous decks of pirate ships and beyond.