A Conspiracy of Truths is a novel by Alexandra Rowland, the first entry in the Chronicles of the Chants series.
In a bleak, far-northern land, a wandering storyteller is arrested on charges of witchcraft. Though Chant protests his innocence, he is condemned not only as a witch, but a spy. His only chance to save himself rests with the skills he has honed for decades – tell a good story, catch and hold their attention, or die.
But the attention he catches is that of the five elected rulers of the country, and Chant finds himself caught in a tangled, corrupt political game which began long before he ever arrived here. As he’s snatched from one Queen’s grasp to another’s, he realizes that he could either be a pawn for one of them… or a player in his own right. After all, he knows better than anyone how powerful the right story can be: Powerful enough to save a life, certainly. Perhaps even powerful enough to bring a nation to its knees.
Due to the nature of the novel, many of the plot points are best found out by reading it. As a result, beware of unmarked spoilers.
A Conspiracy of Truths provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Many examples — Order and Pattern both have female soldiers under them, and the practice is common enough elsewhere that Chant notes they send their sons and daughters to war.
- Affluent Ascetic: Vihra Kylliat, the Queen of Order, whose only real opulent items are her sophisticated prosthetics. Anfisa Zofiyat, as well, lives a humble life and only uses displays of wealth for public appearances — because if she didn't, she would be assassinated.
- All-Loving Hero: Chant describes Ylfing as this, saying that he constantly sees the best parts of the people around him, and the inherent goodness in all of them. He sees this as a bad thing — not only does he feel Ylfing is too trusting, he also finds it annoying.
- Ambiguously Human: Blackwitches are considered this by the people of Nuryevet. The blackwitch Chant encounters reinforces this, making horrible noises and radiating an aura of dread.
- Amoral Attorney: Subverted with Consanza. Consanza describes herself as this, and Chant also describes her as this late in the book. She starts out trying to convince Chant to bribe his way out of trouble, but ultimately drops it after he objects.Despite being called lazy by Chant she tries to help in other ways, losing sleep and time with her family in the process. Even when he's sentenced to death, she goes out of her way to fulfill his requests and comfort him, even though she has no obligation to help him anymore.
- Anti-Hero: Chant isn't strong, young, handsome or magically gifted. But he knows how to tell a story, and he uses this mainly to save his own skin.
- Deadly Decadent Court: In spite of being a democracy, the Primes function like this — it's incredibly common for them to abuse their power to enrich themselves to the point that it's offhandedly expected of them by multiple characters, to Chant's horror.
- Democracy Is Flawed: There are severe, persistent problems with Nuryevet's government. Some in spite of it being a democracy, some because of it being a democracy.
- Fantasy World Map: Played with. There is a map at the beginning of the story, but it does not match the in-story geography because the mapmaker made a 'shitty damn map'. When Chant realizes the mismatches, he realizes that he can still overthrow the Nuryevet government and enable the invasion.
- Gilded Cage: While Chant greatly enjoys the Tower of Pattern compared to every other prison he ends up in throughout the book, he is still eager to point out that he was no less free while he was there.
- Despite her
- Grim Up North: Nuryevet is described as cold, gray and inhospitable multiple times by Chant, and its people are described the same way. Despite this, and despite it containing a horrifying strain of magic, this is subverted — multiple characters over the course of the book are amiable towards Chant, and the grim mood in Nuryevet is due to their society failing them, not the weather.
- Grumpy Old Man: Chant, to a T. Nearly every passage has him insulting someone and/or complaining about something.
- His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Chant is a title that replaces the name of any Chant that finishes their apprenticeship, including the protagonist, as part of "sinking their homeland beneath the sea."
- Honor Before Reason: Vihra Kylliat, and the General of Jade and Iron Ger Zha, a character from a story that Chant compares her to. Both are
- It Is Beyond Saving: Chant's opinion on Nuryevet. Given what he faces there, it's justified.
- Knight in Sour Armor: Chant describes both Consanza and himself as this at one point, saying that unlike Ylfing, they both have seen the ugly parts of humanity and are disgusted by them, but are still unwilling to give up on humanity entirely.
- Low Fantasy: The focus of the story itself is political intrigue, and the main stakes revolve around the life of a single old man. While magic is abundant, to the point that every country seemingly has their own variety, the vast majority of people have no magic whatsoever. Additionally, magic comes in two types: useful but not particularly powerful, or powerful and almost invariably malevolent.
- Naïve Newcomer: Downplayed with Chant — He's an incredibly worldly man with a deep knowledge of multiple countries, but he knows barely anything about Nuryeven, and is thus unprepared for everything that happens to him in the book.
- Omniglot: Chant can speak seventeen languages, and fluently speaks at least seven of them.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: Invoked by Chant, who says more than once that many of the stories he tells are "so real they couldn't possibly have happened."
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Every one of the Primes of Nuryevet attempt to come off as this, and for some Chant almost believes it. The deaths of the only actual reasonable Primes — the King of Law and Queen of Pattern — causes Nuryevet to immediately fall into chaos.
- State Sec: The Ministry of Pattern. Along with acting as diplomats, their job is to investigate and stop threats both inside and outside the country. After Vihra Kylliat kills Anfisa Zofiyat, Order takes over this role.
- The All-Concealing "I": It's clear that Chant is telling a story. What isn't made clear, until a good ways in the book, is that Chant isn't telling the story to us.
- Unreliable Narrator: While Chant seems to not swerve from the actual actions of characters, there are a few characters whose motivations and personalities he describes inconsistently, and the actions and words of at least a few characters don't fit Chant's (often very negative) description of them at all.
- Wandering the Earth: The main job of Chants. They go from place to place, finding stories and secrets, then pass them on to apprentices so that the knowledge isn't lost.
- Worthless Yellow Rocks: Chant considers money to be "a hallucination," in the sense that the only reason it has any value is because people have collectively decided it does. When the Queen of Coin takes over Nuryevet's central bank and cuts off the flow of currency to the rest of the country, he notes that it's still significant, because the country continues to "hallucinate" that money has value.
