The Chocolate Prophecy | E.L. Ward
"A great evil will be coming back into the world... and in two weeks' time, it will rain chocolate." Enter the life of Jek - a humble lighthouse steward on the southern coast of Jast-Madiir. Along with his wife (whose name is Aaliyah… or was it Audrey?), Jek must daily meet the expectations of an iron-fisted dictatorship, a global dragon-Inquisition, and a clerical order of flying jellyfish-like creatures churning out new surveys at a dizzying pace. All-in-all, a fairly predictable tedium. But when any little demerit on his next inspection could cost him his life, it can be hard sometimes to keep from stressing out! Of course, if Jek knew half the things at play just beyond his sleepy shores, he would be very stressed indeed. Neighboring Tophthaera is reeling under the Twin Queens’ civil war. To the north, insurrection threatens to claim the island of Maenea for the cause of “Free-Dome” – a very strange and unsettling new ideology. Even the stable nations must decide how to deal with the recent, accidental discovery of magic. And all the while, the threat of Onyxadon’s inevitable return clouds every counsel. Only the strength and wisdom of the Grand Inquisitor would seem adequate to avail against these many calamities. But he has been dormant for seventy-five years now. Jek is, at best, dimly aware of such things… and perhaps better suited than anyone to be an ineffectual bystander anyway. But those luxuries are burst quite suddenly when he meets a crotchety old sailor man, only to be swept into a hair-brained Noble Quest to find the Knights of the Indigo Lodge, expose a secret Doom Fleet, and unravel the dreaded mystery of Proconsul Zedulon’s infamous “Chocolate Prophecy.”