Dionis (The Cronnex #4)

Welcome to the fourth volume of The Cronnex. Twelve years have passed since the events in Wisferon unfolded. The story begins in the temple complex, where Nassazia is the high priestess. Her child by either Niccas or Helias has reached the age where he must decide either to follow his mother's wishes and allow himself to be transformed into a girl, or to remain a boy.

If he decides to become the girl Diona, her mother intends that, at the age of sixteen, she will be proclaimed a new, female Avatar to replace the two Nithaial, one of whom (Niccas) has vanished forever in the flaming pit, and the other (Jessan) has retreated to Wisferon, crippled by despair.

On the other hand, if Dionis elects to remain a boy, he will be cursed, banished from the temple, and hunted by necromancers, who wish to use him—or, rather, his heart and other body parts—for spellmaking of a most vile and powerful kind.

The choice is made even more difficult for Dionis because he has been raised within the temple and has never even met a boy—at least, that is, until the spirit of Sepharan (a youth the same age as Dionis who was Niccas's companion until murdered) appears in his bedroom the night that the decision must be made. And thus this part of the tale begins.