A trilogy of novels by Glenda Larke about a society that exists in an extremely dry climate, and get their precious water through people with power over water. The strongest of these, called "stormlords", can draw water vapor out of the distant sea and cause rain in strategic places to fill the cisterns of the cities. People with water powers are rare, and stormlords rarer still. A "rainlord" has lesser power over water, and are used in governing and maintaining cities and water supplies. People with just water sensitivity are called "reeves" and are mostly administrative and holy. Everyone else lives like normal, getting their daily water allotment from the reeves and sacrificing water to the Sunlord, who they believe is the source of the water powers that keep their cisterns filled.
The land is divided into Quarterns- the Scarpen Quarter, to the southwest, where most of the large developed cities are and the where the stormlord lives. Most rainlords and stormlords come from this Quartern. The Gibber Quarter to the southeast is very poor and underdeveloped- communities scrape and live in settlements along drywashes. The Red Quarter is to the northwest and is filled with red sand dunes and occupied by a tribal society- they tend to be the most volatile and dangerous on average. The last quarter is the White Quarter, filled with salt plains and the local people, called "Alabasters". They have white skin and white hair and mine for their living.
The people of the Quartern use pedes for their mounts and as pack and work animals. They are essentially giant centipedes and millipedes. The attach animals are insects called ziggers. When released from their cages they fly into unprotected eyes and mouths to burrow into the victim, killing the person and feeding before crawling out and returning to their cages. Their owners wear a specialized perfume that each owner's ziggers are trained not to attack. The Red Quarter is where most of the pedes and ziggers come from- that and their warrior society is what makes the people of that quarter so dangerous.
The book starts out with only one stormlord left- all the rest have died in their youths. Usually, several stormlords have to work together to water the Quarten, so Granthon doing it all by himself is causing him to weaken and the Quartern to not get enough water. The people need to find a new stormlord if they are to survive, so they are going to start looking outside the Scarpen Quarter in places not normally thought to produce them.
