Shadow Reaper

Shadow Reaper is the first installment of a YA fantasy duology set on Elverdine Isle, an isolated island city called Aravell surrounded by blackmist, a deadly magical fog. Four obsidian obelisks suppress the island's volatile magic and shield the city. Children must undergo the Impartation ceremony before age fourteen, surrendering nearly all their ellixen (the novel's term for magic) to fuel the obelisks' wards. Reapers, people who siphon ellixen from others through skin contact and kill their victims, prey on children who have not yet Imparted. The Hunters' Guild tracks and captures reapers, while the Nox Custodia handles general law enforcement.

Seventeen-year-old Viridia "Viri" Solace is a prodigious hunter whose parents were murdered seven years ago by the Reaper Priest, the mysterious leader of all reapers. One night she captures a reaper using her fillium, a rare golden cord that suppresses reaper abilities and compels truth, along with an illegal powder created by her best friend, Wynter Starling. When a high-ranking reaper named Reeve Ashton is arrested, Viri conceals a secret: She knew Reeve as a child, and he once meant a great deal to her. She persuades her other best friend, Soren Archer, a member of the Nox Custodia, to grant unauthorized access to Reeve's cell. Reeve proposes a bargain: his freedom for answers about the Priest. Viri refuses but cannot dismiss him.

Punished with desk duty by Meera, her mentor and head of the Hunters' Guild, Viri discovers a suspicious surge in missing children reports and confirms at least thirty-two remain unaccounted for, all young enough to possess strong ellixen. Sarielle Starling, Wynter's mother, Viri's legal guardian, and the island's political leader, confides that the Priest may be planning something involving children and the Aurora Comet, a rare celestial event that can grant immense power through sacrificial ritual. Fifty children are now confirmed missing. Resolved, Viri breaks Reeve out of prison.

Using Wynter's powder to bypass security, Viri reaches Reeve and confirms his bargain under the fillium's power. When Soren discovers them, Reeve attacks him to shield Soren from suspicion. They subdue guards at a wayportal, a magical portal for instant travel, and escape. Reeve admits he does not know the Priest's exact location but claims to know how to find him. Viri discovers her fillium does not work on Reeve; he is immune, meaning he could have lied throughout.

Reeve leads Viri to his network of reaper allies: Jonas Flynn, Sage D'alia, and Ardin Avarni. When kidnapped children are reported being relocated, Reeve leaves to intercept. Tracking him, Viri discovers these reapers fight against the abductors. She joins the battle, and they save eight of twelve children, but four escape. Reeve is stabbed by a grimblade, a rare poisoned weapon, while shielding Viri. At Wynter's secret laboratory, the antidote requires administration by the person with the longest emotional bond to the patient. Viri admits she has known Reeve for thirteen years and reveals a larger secret: The Reaper Priest is her brother, Braedan Solace, whom she told the council had died alongside their parents.

Soren arrives with devastating news: His thirteen-year-old sister, Jessalyn Archer, is among the four lost children. Wynter's research reveals Aurora is one of a pair of comets; the second, Orion, requires a sacrifice involving ellixen abyssus, which Wynter provisionally translates as "void magic." Aurora arrives Sunday night, three days away. Reeve reveals that Braedan has left to find the Guardian of Elverdine Isle, a legendary ancient mage who grants magewishes from Nevarnost Tower, accessible only through the Mistwood, a deadly, shifting forest. Braedan intends to wish for the death of the Priest's true master. To reach the Guardian first, Viri and Reeve need a magical map keyed to Solace blood and a talisman ring that shields against the blackmist. The group infiltrates the Summit, the government complex, and retrieves both artifacts from Sarielle's storeroom. Sarielle discovers them but allows them to leave, and Meera arrives to help Viri escape.

Entering the Mistwood, Viri and Reeve survive encounters with a shapeshifting wraith and a massive lake creature before Viri summons a wayportal using her Solace blood. At Nevarnost Tower, the Guardian stands with Braedan, who has already arrived. As Braedan attempts to speak his wish, Reeve uses his own to prevent Braedan from receiving one, and the Guardian confirms Reeve's wish is fulfilled. Reeve reveals the truth he has concealed: Braedan is not behind the Aurora sacrifice. A Reaper Lord, the true leader of all reapers, rules Diaboros, a hidden reaper city inside Mount Mort. Killing the Lord would release a catastrophic magical surge, freeing all reapers to overrun Aravell. The sacrifice's true purpose is to destroy the obelisks.

Viri demands a magewish, but the Guardian reveals she used hers seven years ago, when she asked to forget. She agrees to have her memories restored and relives her Impartation at age ten: The obelisk flooded her with magic instead of absorbing hers, causing a surge that killed her parents. Eleven-year-old Reeve saved her by siphoning the excess. The Reaper Lord then appeared and forced Braedan to choose: surrender Viri as a prisoner or take her place. When the Lord tortured Viri, Braedan agreed, siphoning from their parents' bodies to become a reaper. The Guardian offered young Viri a magewish, and at Reeve's urging, she wished to forget.

In the tower's garden, Braedan shares his full story: The Lord imprisoned him and, through torture and forced dependence on ellixen, made him a compliant figurehead Priest. Months ago, Reeve's group freed him, and together they have been working to stop the abductions. Braedan reveals that as a baby, Viri crawled into blackmist and died; their parents used a stolen magewish to revive her, binding her to the obelisks' ward magic. The Guardian confirms that if the obelisks are destroyed, Viri will die.

Time has passed differently in the Mistwood; it is now Sunday morning. Viri races to the White Tomb cathedral, where she discovers Jessalyn and the fifty children held captive. The Reaper Lord destroys her fillium and reveals having manipulated events so Viri would stop Braedan's wish, saving the Lord's own life. Viri later awakens tied to a pillar as the Aurora Comet appears overhead. Using her ward magic offensively for the first time, she breaks her bonds, shatters the cathedral's wards, and mentally alerts Reeve. Nox and hunters flood in. When the Lord attempts to sacrifice Jessalyn, Viri creates a magical shield that shatters the Lord's bone dagger. The Lord kills dozens and flees. The children are saved.

Afterward, Wynter tries to correct her translation of ellixen abyssus but is interrupted. Viri finds Reeve; they share a tender moment before an unseen attack knocks her unconscious. She wakes inside Diaboros with a nullicuff blocking her magic. The Reaper Lord reveals that the Orion Comet requires ellixen abyssus, now clarified as ward magic rather than void magic, and Viri is the only person who possesses it; the Lord intends her as the sole sacrifice. The Lord lowers her hood, revealing herself to be Sarielle Starling, the friend whose magewish Viri's parents stole to save baby Viri. Sarielle took Viri in not from love but to keep her close. She reveals the others have been captured and delivers a final revelation: Reeve is her son. The door slams shut, leaving Viri imprisoned, her magic sealed, and her heart broken.

Interspersed throughout the novel, journal entries from ancient mages Kadmus Castro and Tephryn Alemedes reveal the island's hidden history. Kadmus, corrupted by proximity to the Hallow Stream, a source of pure magic, became the first reaper. Unable to kill him without catastrophic consequences, the mages entombed him on the mainland. Tephryn engineered the blackmist to trap reapers on the island. The Impartation ceremony is a lie: Children's magic fuels the blackmist, not their own protection. The mages erased these truths from memory, leaving Tephryn as the first Guardian. Elverdine Isle is not a haven but a prison designed to contain reapers and protect the outside world. The story continues in the second volume.