LORD OF CASTLE BLACK

Journeys! Intrigues! Sword fights! Young persons having adventures! Beloved older characters having adventures too! Quests! Battles! Romance! Snappy dialogue! Extravagant food! And the missing heir to the Imperial Throne!
It's an old-fashioned adventure-moving at a twenty-first-century pace.
The Interregnum is over. To everyone's astonishment, Zerika, a very young Phoenix, has coolly emerged from the Paths of the Dead, carrying with her the Orb, which everyone had thought was lost in Adron's Disaster. The Orb is the heart of the Dragaeran Empire, the source of all its magic-and the infallible sign that Zerika is the new Empress.
But not everyone is happy to hear the news. It's been 250 years since Adron's Disaster, and power vacuums never stay vacuums for long....
The Khaavren Romances, set in the world of Vlad Taltos's Dragaera:
1. The Phoenix Guards
2. Five Hundred Years After
3. The Paths of the Dead (The Viscount of Adrilankha, Vol. 1)
4. The Lord of Castle Black (The Viscount of Adrilankha, Vol. 2)
5. Sethra Lavode (The Viscount of Adrilankha, Vol. 3)
The Baron of Magister Valley [standalone]

Steven Brust