Shadow's Son

The thrilling Shadow Saga begins in Shadow's Son—"a first-rate sword-and-sorcery tale, with intriguing characters, that moves at a quick pace" ( Booklist).
In the city of Othir, there are two kinds of people—the dead and those ones who made them that way.
Caim is certainly not dead. Orphaned and adrift, Caim grows up to become a cold-blooded assassin with the aid of his ethereal companion Kit—a useful-but-maddening spirit only he can see or hear. And as far as Caim is concerned, he doesn't need anyone else getting that close to him.
But that changes when he's betrayed on what should have been a simple job—and his only chance for survival lies with Josephine, the young daughter of the very nobleman he was hired to eliminate.
Soon Caim is caught in a wide-ranging conspiracy that stretches from Othir's gilded halls of power to its bloodied alleyways. He must stay sharp if he is to uncover a cabal of traitors, keep Josey alive, and confront the forgotten truth of his own dark past…