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Description:
Jordan Mason is a bright, honest, hardworking lad who maintains the wall of the manor house of Salt Inspector Castle. In the feudal society of the planet Ventus, he cannot expect to climb any higher on the social ladder. When, one day, he has a full sensory hallucination of horses, grasslands, and clashing armies, he assumes he is prone to the visions that some people have, visions perhaps granted by the gods called "Winds." Then Jordan is kidnapped by the mysterious and powerful Lady Calandria May, and he sets out into a world full of noble quarrels, galloping horses and sword fights, a mad queen at war with the general who loves her desperately, apparently magical doors operated by cryptical codes, and a destiny he could never have dreamed.
But this is no ordinary epic fantasy. The stones Jordan works with are filled with "mecha" life, and the terrifying Heaven Hooks that scourge the land to wrest mortals from their lives are not supernatural, as common folk believe. Jordan will learn that the Winds themselves are Artificial Intelligences, and that his "visions" are actually real-time experiences transmitted from an AI -- masquerading as a human, Armiger -- who has sinister plans for the fate of Ventus.
As Jordan journeys across the dangerous and war-torn land, he discovers that the relationship between Ventus and its Winds is not merely one of etymology; in fact, the history of his planet and its culture is a palimpsest scrawled with superstitions and lies to cover ancient and bitter truths. He will find friends to help him seek Armiger, but soon humans, AIs, even the nanolife embedded in every particle of the planet seek him, too, for the meaning of his visions endangers not only his society but the ecological balance of his world -- and a galactic war whose origins lie in the forming of Ventus itself.
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