The Quest for the Rose — J.P. Reedman

Esmerelda is an orphan under the malign rule of the sinister religious order known as the Sestren. Slavery is her destiny...but then she meets an old wise man, and with his prompting goes on a quest to seek his daughter, the Rose of the World, a girl of many powers who has been missing, presumed dead, ever since the land was blasted by St Tarcissian's Fire in the Great War 30 years before. On her journey Esme escapes Bloody Bones, a monstrous acolyte of her fearsome teacher, Sestren Agrippa, becomes a Refugee in an underground warren and is taken to a brainwashing hospital where they chop off errant children's feet.. but despite her inate shyness and lack of confidence, she overcomes the dangers before her and is dogged in her pursuit of the elusive Rose. Will she find what she seeks before the Sestren hold their final ceremony, the 'Great Feast' that will end all mankind?