Child of the River

Confluence is an artificial world, a long ribbon of land beside an enormous River, built untold ages ago by the Preservers, who shaped ten thousand human bloodlines from beasts and then abandoned their creation, leaving behind their laws, their bureaucracies, and their trillions of half-understood machines. Found as an infant floating down the River beside the coffin of a dead young woman, the boy Yama is raised by a kindly official in a quiet riverside town. As he grows, he discovers he belongs to no known bloodline and that he can command the world's ancient machines in ways no one else can. His search for the truth of his origins pulls him into the politics, war, and theology of a world straining against its makers' silence.