Lord of Emperors

Item: Lord of Emperors
Author: WhichBook

Guy Gavriel Kay

If you like to dream of long ago, you will love this story of love, power and magic inspired by the byzantine mosaics of Ravenna. Crispin the mosaicist, Rustem the healer and the enigmatic empress Alixana emerge to full life from the Sarantine Mosaic. The first volume was Sailing to Sarantium.

Extract

Not far away from that palace room where no bird is singing, a man is as high in the air as birds might fly, working from a scaffold under a dome. The exterior of the dome is copper, gleaming under moon and stars. The interior is his.
... Someone might look up one day, when all those awake or asleep in Sarantium tonight are long dead, and know that this woman was fair, and very greatly loved by the unknown man who placed her overhead, the way the ancient Trakesian gods were said to have set their mortal loves in the sky, as stars.

Parallels