Book #2 - Empire

The second trilogy of the In Her Name series starts with Empire. It’s a 100 years after the first books, all those characters long dead in human space, though Tesh Dar lives on and returns. It starts on a human colony, attacked by the Kreelan. A young boy is supposed to be in a shelter as his parents make a last stand, but he gets out. His parents are killed, and as he runs, Tesh Dar picks him up. He’s terrified, and somehow manages to scratch her face, leaving a scar from eyebrow to cheek. She appreciates the young one’s spirit and lets him live, but not before leaving him with a matching scar.

The book fast forwards to a planet where orphans are put to work, almost as slaves. Reva Gard, the young human with the scar saves and befriends a women who manages to leave the planet for the Navy the next year. However before she can return to the planet, the Kreelan attack, kidnapping human children. Tesh-Dar remembers Reva and brings him along to the Kreelan homeworld, even though he is older than the Kreelan experiment called for. The planet is destroyed, becoming a blackened rock with no atmosphere.

On the Homeworld, we follow Reva for years as he is trained as a warrior. The Kreelan bound to him calls him an animal, and both beats and trains him, teaching him their language and ways, even as she treats him as less than a person. You can guess for the story goes, and it’s an interesting one as Reva excels in the Kreelan society, earning their respect and earns the right to live. Eventually he proves he is The One, as the Empress believes, and he along with his mate, his tresh, his wife, is chosen by Tesh-Dar as the successor of her line. However he cannot pledge to fight humans for the Empress and is banished as the book ends.

A great story.