Seeds of Tomorrow (2009)

From the introduction:

Every politician, teacher and religious figure of the last century has made the motto ”children are our future” a part of our accepted philosophy. How a culture treats its children is considered a vital distinction between a civilized society and a barbarous one. Crimes against children — physical and mental abuse, sexual molestation, neglect, abduction, child labor, child pornography and murder — all tend to draw more serious legal punishments than equivalent crimes against adults.

The idea that children must be protected, taught and cherished is no less true when the children in question are Scions. Before the Visitation of a Scion’s divine parent, the Scion in question is mortal, and as vulnerable to physical, mental and emotional danger as any other child. Yet they are also potential sources of great power, and (to those who might be able to identify them as such) prospective pawns.

In Seeds of Tomorrow, someone has indeed developed a way to detect such Scions-to-be, and is poised to take full advantage of them in a way that could change the Titanswar forever. Opposing forces are in place to reap a harvest of power in these children and turn it to their own ends, depriving their divine parents of aid and possibly allowing the Titans to gain the upper hand. The story can be readily worked into the events of an existing Scion cycle, or it can serve as the launching point for a new cycle detailing the characters’ explorations of the world behind the curtain.