The Mystery of the Third Seal

The meek inherited the earth. But someone is still deciding who survives. Sixteen-year-old James Tadworthy lives in a peaceful post-apocalyptic society where violence is unknown, disease has been eradicated, and the Shepherds of the Federation Church guide every community with wisdom and care. Life is safe. Life is harmonious. Life is controlled. When his best friend's pregnant partner is secretly drugged and detained by those same trusted Shepherds, everything James believed shatters.
His brilliant tutor dies under suspicious circumstances. His friends face a penance at the sand mines from which Grandmother predicts no return. And James himself is hunted through the night and thrown into a flooding river. Rescued by his formidable grandmother, who knows far more about the world's dark secrets than she ever revealed, James descends into forbidden underground tunnels where ancient technology still hums and creatures with glowing red eyes roam.
Somewhere in the darkness lies the legendary third seal, a vault of knowledge the survivors of the old wars locked away for posterity. But reaching it means confronting horrors that make the Shepherds' tyranny look merciful.