The Lost Fleet

Trapped inside the Empire, Captain Jules of Landfall has to use every deadly trick and strategy she knows to avoid recapture by the Emperor’s legions, and stay alive despite every attempt the Mages make to kill her. The only chance to get away may require walking back into the trap she barely escaped the first time. But even her freedom won’t be enough. The prophecy that consumes Jules’s life demands she has an heir to carry on her line. Yet how can she satisfy that while being hunted everywhere? And what might the prophecy cause to happen if she doesn’t have a child?

Battling wind, waves, implacable Mage assassins, and Imperial ships, Jules is forced to turn to an unlikely ally―the hated Mechanics. She must gather men, women, and ships from all of the new settlements to face the Imperial legionaries and galleys. For only Jules can lead the free people of the west in the final battle that could be their salvation―or the destruction of all that she’s fought for.

Now captain of her own pirate ship, Jules of Landfall faces ambushes by Mage assassins and threats from Mechanics who can’t decide whether to kill her or try to use her for their own ends. The Emperor has made her an offer he doesn’t think she can refuse, but Jules wants nothing to do with that gilded cage. Now, the Emperor’s forces are redoubling their efforts to capture her.

The free ships of the pirates have never gathered around any single leader, but when the Mechanics seek to limit the power of the Empire, Jules realizes it offers her a means to grow the strength of the free people escaping the Emperor’s grasp. Gaining access to the strange Mechanic weapons known as “revolvers”, she marshals her forces in an unprecedented attempt to capture an Imperial settlement.

Ultimately, Jules must play the three greatest powers in the world against each other, in a desperate gambit to survive.

On the world of Dematr, the Emperor and his legions rule over the lands on the eastern side of the Sea of Bakre, and the Great Guilds rule over the Emperor and his subjects. The Mechanics Guild, whose members claim they came from the stars, controls technology far beyond that of the swords and sailing ships of the common people, while the Mage Guild wields strange powers that terrify all who face them.

Jules, an orphan from the Imperial city of Landfall, has fought her way up to become an officer in training with the Emperor’s fleet. But her plans and her life are shattered when a Mage prophesizes that a daughter of her line will one day overthrow the Great Guilds and free the world. In that moment, the prophecy takes over her life. The Mages plot to kill her, the Mechanics try to find ways to use her, and the Emperor seeks to coerce her into having his children.

Unwilling to surrender her life to serving the prophecy, Jules makes her escape by joining the crew of a pirate ship. As she fights for her comrades’ freedom as well as her own, she learns that the world is finally changing. But if that change triggers all-out war between the Great Guilds and the Empire, it may well devastate the world rather than free it.

New York Times best-selling author Jack Campbell's epic series, The Pillars of Reality, reaches its exciting conclusion.The Great Guilds, fearing the loss of their control of the world of Dematr, have gathered their power and joined it with the relentless legions of the Empire. The full might of that host will fall upon the fortress city of Dorcastle. If Dorcastle falls, the revolt led by Master Mechanic Mari and Mage Alain will fail, and their world will soon descend into chaos.Only Mari, believed to be the daughter of an ancient prophecy, can inspire the people and lead the defense of Dorcastle. The prophecy says she has a chance to win, but it doesn't say she will survive. Alain will stand by her, both willing to die for the other, but neither one knows if their sacrifices will mean victory.As they battle the Imperial legions and see friends fall, Mari and Alain face their greatest challenges. And if they somehow win in the face of impossible odds, neither one can be certain what sort of world that victory will produce.

A Storm that will wreck a world threatens Dematr. Only Mari, one of the Mechanics who control all technology through their Guild, has a chance to stop it. She and Mage Alain have survived numerous attempts to kill them and have gained many more followers, but the Storm of chaos, born of centuries of enslavement, grows ever closer.

Mari leads an army now. She and Alain must fight together to bind back the Broken Kingdom and build a force strong enough to defeat the might of the Great Guilds. But the Storm has many Servants who seek to preserve or gain personal power or wealth, or fear the New Day that Mari seeks to bring to the world.

And Mari knows that victory will mean nothing if the precious knowledge brought long ago to their world is destroyed. In order to save it, Alain and Mari will have to pierce through the heart of their enemies' power and confront once more a place of ancient nightmare.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781625671370

Master Mechanic Mari and Mage Alain have survived every attempt to stop them, but their enemies are determined to kill Mari, the only one who can save her world from a storm of destruction. As armies begin to gather and cities seethe with tension, Mari, Alain, and their friends must prepare to confront the storm in the place it first appeared: the broken kingdom of Tiae.

The dangers facing them demand perilous raids, tough battles, and more than a little piracy. Beating the Mechanics Guild and the Mage Guild that have controlled the world of Dematr for centuries will require an unprecedented alliance under Mari's command of rebellious Mechanics, Mages, and common folk who know that together they can change the world, but separately they will all lose.

Trapped within the dead city of Marandur, Master Mechanic Mari and Mage Alain must escape both merciless barbarians and the pitiless Imperial Legion. Beyond those dangers lie the mightiest and most unforgiving powers in the world of Dematr: the Great Guilds that rule the world with iron fists.

Mari's Mechanics Guild and Alain's Mage Guild have always been enemies, but they are united in wanting to kill their rogue members before Mari can fulfill the ancient prophecy of being the one who will finally overthrow their power. Mari and Alain must risk those dangers because halfway across their world lies a place where truth has long been hidden. A place that could explain why their world's history begins abruptly, with no hints of what came before. A place where they might learn how the Mechanics Guild came to control all technology and how the Mages manage to alter reality temporarily. A place that might tell them how to achieve a task that appears to be impossible.

Never before have a Mage and a Mechanic worked together, and their combined talents offer their only hope. But she and Alain must first survive the deadly and implacable Assassins of Altis.

It’s Book 2 of The Pillars of Reality, the exciting epic fantasy series written exclusively for Audible by New York Times bestselling author Jack Campbell!

Someone wants to kill Mari, a young Steam Mechanic in the Guild that controls all technology. She has learned that her world of Dematr is headed for a catastrophe that will destroy civilization, and that Mages really can alter reality for short periods. Someone also wants to kill Alain, a young Mage who has learned that Mechanics are not frauds as his Guild teaches, and that Mechanic Mari is the only person who can prevent the oncoming disaster.

Narrowly escaping death, the Mechanic and the Mage stay alive thanks to their combined skills, an alliance never before seen. But it becomes clear that both of their Guilds, the most powerful forces in the world, are trying to destroy them. Other powers, like the great Empire and a mysterious secret Order, also seek to kill or capture them, using every weapon from Imperial Legions to Mage-created trolls, dragons, and rocs.

Trying to survive and learn the truth about their world so they will know how to save it, Mari and Alain realize that the answers they seek may lie in the dead city of Marandur. But Marandur is guarded by the legions that have sealed it off from the rest of the world for more than a century. Mari and Alain's only hope may rest with the unseen Masters of Marandur.

For centuries, the two Great Guilds have controlled the world of Dematr. The Mechanics and the Mages have been bitter rivals, agreeing only on the need to keep the world they rule from changing. But now a Storm approaches, one that could sweep away everything that humans have built. Only one person has any chance of uniting enough of the world behind her to stop the Storm, but the Great Guilds and many others will stop at nothing to defeat her.

Mari is a brilliant young Mechanic, just out of the Guild Halls where she has spent most of her life learning how to run the steam locomotives and other devices of her Guild. Alain is the youngest Mage ever to learn how to change the world he sees with the power of his mind. Each has been taught that the works of the other’s Guild are frauds. But when their caravan is destroyed, they begin to discover how much has been kept from them.

As they survive danger after danger, Alain discovers what Mari doesn’t know—that she was long ago prophesized as the only one who can save their world. When Mari reawakens emotions he had been taught to deny, Alain realizes he must sacrifice everything to save her. Mari, fighting her own feelings, discovers that only together can she and Alain hope to stay alive and overcome the Dragons of Dorcastle.