Bloodline

Thorn would happily take some time off. He does not get any. A great magical puzzle opens for the first time in a hundred years, and because of his connection to it, his presence at the Temple of Man stops being optional.

Attending pulls him straight into city politics and into conspiracies among the divine, and very little turns out to be what it first appears. Inside the puzzle he meets strange townspeople, elemental rulers with real power behind them, and enemies who are more than a match for him, all while pushing for the tenth tier.

Book five of Seth Ring's Tower series, set in the world of Nova Terra.