The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

[nymeth]

There were three gods once.

Only three, I mean. Now there are dozens, perhaps hundreds. They breed like rabbits. But once there were only three, most powerful and glorious of all: the god of day, the god of night, and the goddess of twilight and dawn. Or light and darkness and the shades between. Or order, chaos, and balance. None of that is important because one of them died, the other might as well have, and the last is the only one who matters anymore.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms is narrated by Yeine Darr (or Yeine Arameri), who at the age of nineteen is summoned by her powerful grandfather to the imposing city of Sky, the centre of the political world. Yeine’s home, Darre, is seen by those in charge of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms as a land of hopeless barbarians, and possibly of secret heretics. Her mother, Kinneth, was one of the Arameri, the elite family in whose hands power is concentrated; when Kinneth turned her back on her family to marry Yeine’s father, the whole of Darre fell in disgrace, and the economic repercussion of the Arameri’s ill will are felt to the present day.

The summons from Sky comes shortly after Kinneth’s mysterious death,  and one of Yeine’s reasons for going is to try and find out who wanted her mother killed after all this time – and why. But when she arrives, her grandfather, Dekarta, informs her that he’s formally naming her one of his heirs – which means that, along with two unknown and possibly murderous cousins, she’s now in the line of succession for the throne.
( MOAR words )