War in Erede

Karan's home country, Erede was invaded by the neighbouring country of Pithen. The Pithenites quickly took several cities, including Karan's home city of Tormelia. Fearing for their safety, many Eredians fled across the Great Void - an enormous, unfathomably deep scar in the world - to the isolated continent of Vorend, where they would take sanctuary until the war was over. It has been four years since then, and it seems the war is no closer to ending. Now Karan works shifts at a tavern called The Shattered Flagon, and takes sword-fighting lessons in his spare time, all the while trying to ignore the hatred the Vorendians have for immigrants like him. Karan's best friend Viri is a student at the Acad Magis, a school for people born with the rare ability to use magic, and, as such, is of a much higher class than Karan, as is constantly drilled into him by everyone he knows. When prominent figures in the Vorendian government start getting assassinated, just as Viri starts to indicate that he wants to be more than a friend to Karan, the Vorendian people turn even more violent towards the Eredian refugees. As Karan struggles to make sense of the chaos, the excellent new student at Karan's fighting class, the handsome Ren, offers to give Karan the additional tutelage which he sorely needs. As the assassinations continue, hatred of foreigners mounts to an overwhelming crescendo, and everything Karan has worked so hard to achieve, and his life itself, is in serious danger.