Riftborne

The first book in the Esprithean Trilogy is set on the Isle of Sídhe, a kingdom of elven-like beings called the Aossí who possess individual magical abilities known as focuses, powered by a force called essence. Twenty years before the story begins, Sídhe destroyed the neighboring island of Ríftdremar. Surviving children were brought to Sídhe and branded on their left hands; these refugees are called the Riftborne.

Fia, a 23-year-old Riftborne, works at an Apothecary in Sídhe's capital, Luminaria, for her employer and surrogate mother figure, Maladea Thiston (Ma). Fia's appearance is strikingly unsettling: white curly hair, pale skin, and opalescent eyes ringed by perpetual dark shadows. She harbors a dangerous secret: A volatile, uncontrollable power surges when her emotions spike, and it has been worsening. She has told no one, not even her closest friend and fellow Riftborne, Osta.

When Fia delivers tonics to a lavish celebration in the Grove, she encounters Bekha and Jordaan Fairbanks, cruel daughters of the woman who ran the group home where Fia and Osta grew up. The sisters mock the drowning deaths of Fia's Riftborne friends at a river dam five years earlier. Their taunts trigger Fia's power, and she unleashes a searing force that leaves the girls motionless. General Laryk Ashford, leader of the Guard's elite Faction Venom, emerges from the shadows, witnesses everything, and walks away without a word.

Fia flees home, convinced she is a murderer. When Osta insists she saw the girls leave alive, Fia is bewildered. The next day, Ashford appears at the Apothecary and confirms the attack was real: His healer revived the girls, and a specialist who could alter appearances erased the evidence. He threatens Fia with exposure unless she agrees to let him train her focus and join Faction Venom. The proposal appalls Fia, a Riftborne asked to serve the military that destroyed her homeland, but Ashford frames it as blackmail.

Fia considers fleeing but cannot sell a gold bracelet, her only keepsake from Ríftdremar. Osta surprises her by urging acceptance, arguing the training could help Fia control her power. That evening, Fia nearly loses control on the street, but a sudden rainstorm interrupts the energy building inside her before it erupts. Sitting on the wet pavement, Fia realizes running will solve nothing. Her power is worsening, and she will be a danger wherever she goes. She accepts the General's offer.

Private sessions yield no progress. Ashford instructs Fia to meditate and find her focus's origin point, but her power only activates during emotional extremes. After two fruitless weeks, they argue and part ways. Ma, who lost her twin brother to the Guard, is furious when Fia reveals she has been training.

A week later, Ashford returns with a new method: He brings the guard from the river dam, the man who pulled the levers that killed Fia's friends, to provoke her rage. It works. For the first time, Fia consciously feels a translucent web of energy originate at the base of her spine and reach her skull. She lifts the guard into the air and begins crushing his mind, then chooses to stop, willing the tendrils back down. She has found her access point and proven she can both channel and retract her power. Ashford then draws his sword and kills the guard, calling it Fia's "reward." Fia is horrified.

Fia joins group training under Lieutenant Callum Mercer, Ashford's second-in-command. Her fellow recruits include Raine Ampere, a lightning wielder who becomes her closest friend; Baelor Soleil, an arrogant fire wielder whose father led the destruction of Ríftdremar; and Nazul Halstead, who generates protective shields. The recruits swear blood oaths preventing them from discussing classified intelligence. Mercer reveals the real threat: Wraiths, shadow creatures from another world attacking near the western border city of Stormshire. The Wraiths siphon air from victims' lungs and seek Sídhe's stores of arcanite, a rare crystal that conducts and stores essence.

Training intensifies with combat sparring and breathing trials simulating Wraith suffocation. At the Tribute Ball, Fia dances with Ashford and encounters Narissa, his possessive third-in-command who is hostile toward Fia. Osta lands a position with Lady Lyanna Soleil, a noblewoman she met at the ball, and Fia moves into the Compound, the Guard's residential training headquarters, as Raine's roommate. At an unauthorized gathering, Baelor attacks Osta with fire, but Nazul shields her, sparking a romance between them. When Fia confronts Baelor, she discovers she can enter his mind and take direct control, commanding his body to leave. Ashford warns that this ability must stay secret: The King would have her killed if he learned she could control minds.

The recruits pass their final evaluation and are inducted as initiates. Before deployment, Fia steals and destroys her blood oath vial so she can speak freely. She confesses the truth to Ma, who forgives her and provides a breakthrough: a potion made from red algae that lets the drinker hold their breath for an extended period, countering the Wraiths' suffocation. Ma gives Fia a small supply.

Ashford takes Fia on a separate route to Emeraal, a fortress near the western border. He reveals his focus: supernaturally sharp perception that lets him read and anticipate opponents, though it has never worked on Fia. That night, Fia accidentally enters his dream, discovering another facet of her mind-based focus. She realizes her recurring nightmares may have been other people's dreams she accessed unconsciously.

At Emeraal, Fia begins noticing strange shadows at the edges of her vision. She and Ashford confront their feelings and sleep together. He believes her mind-control focus could be the key to capturing a Wraith alive. Fia has a dream vision of Wraiths moving past a ruined tower, but Ashford dismisses it when border patrols report nothing.

At the ball the next evening, the candles go out. The Wraiths attack Emeraal, not Stormshire, confirming Fia's vision. She uses Ma's breathing potion to survive suffocation and fights alongside Ashford near the arcanite stores. When Osta is surrounded, Fia's fury triggers something unprecedented: She absorbs all the surrounding darkness into her body and releases it outward, clearing the battlefield. She collapses, and shadowy tendrils envelop her, lifting her into the air. No one moves to help, not even Ashford. Fia is carried away through the night sky.

Drifting in and out of consciousness, Fia learns her captors call her a "shadow wielder" whose soul is "bound to the dusk." They fly on winged creatures to Ravenfell, a city of black towers in a dark realm called Umbrathia. During the journey, Fia experiences a vision in which a mysterious presence calls her "Fiandrial" and says it has been waiting for her. She wakes in a locked room, her injuries healed. Aether, the leader of her captors, enters: a tall man with golden eyes and shadows around his eyes identical to hers. He insists they saved her and claims the Sídhe have been draining Umbrathia, causing his people to starve and die.

Alone afterward, Fia looks in a mirror and discovers her opalescent eyes are changing: Ink-like darkness swirls within them, identical to the Wraith shadows Mercer demonstrated during training. The deepening darkness around her eyes, the strange shadows she has been seeing, and her ability to absorb and wield darkness all suggest she is connected to the very enemy she was trained to destroy. The novel ends with Fia alone in the tower, grappling with the possibility that her identity and loyalties are far more complicated than she ever imagined.