Road of Shadows — Jeffrey Quyle

In “Road of Shadows”, the third book of the Inner Seas Kingdoms series, Kestrel continues on his quest to find a way to defeat the forces of Uniontown, the aggressive southern nation that is conquering its neighbors among the other kingdoms, using treachery and force to overcome its adversaries.

Part-elven Kestrel is on his way from the elven kingdom in the Eastern Forest, returning to the northern marches of Graylee, so that he can rejoin the human girl he adores, Margo, as she tries to maintain and protect the manor house where her parents were slain by Uniontown's supporters. As he crosses the plain of Hydrotaz on his way to Margo though, Kestrel's journey is disrupted, and the consequence is a profound detour �" the human god Growelf redirects Kestrel to travel through a portal to another land, where a group of sprites and elves are in peril, and need Kestrel to rescue them if they are to survive.

In the strange land of two red suns, Allbanu, Kestrel comes to realize that the destruction being wrought in that world is only a foretaste of what will happen in his own land if Uniontown is allowed to gain victory. When he and the sprites return to the lands of the Inner Seas though, Kestrel will find that the threat of Uniontown can be so insidious and well-disguised that he may not recognize it until it has already burrowed into his own heart.