The Demon King

The first installment of the Seven Realms series is set in the queendom of the Fells, a mountainous realm governed by a matrilineal line of queens descended from the legendary Hanalea. A thousand-year-old covenant called the Naéming, forged between wizards and clans after a magical catastrophe known as the Breaking, forbids wizards from marrying queens and gives the clans control over the amulets that channel wizard magic. The story follows two protagonists whose lives converge as the old order fractures.

Han Alister is a sixteen-year-old former streetlord—nicknamed Cuffs for the thick engraved silver bracelets he has worn since infancy and cannot remove—from the impoverished Ragmarket neighborhood of Fellsmarch, where he supports his mother and young sister, Mari. While gathering herbs on Hanalea, a sacred Spirit Mountain, with his close friend Fire Dancer, a clan boy from Marisa Pines Camp, they encounter three young wizards who have set a magical wildfire to drive deer for a royal hunt. Their leader is Micah Bayar, son of Gavan Bayar, the High Wizard. When Micah reaches for his amulet to hex Dancer, Han forces him at arrowpoint to surrender it. Despite Dancer's urging to discard the amulet, a snarl of serpents carved from green stone, Han keeps it, sensing its power and potential value.

Meanwhile, Princess Raisa ana'Marianna, the nearly sixteen-year-old heir to the Gray Wolf throne, waits below with the royal hunting party. The wizard fire sweeps toward them, trapping the group in a narrow canyon until Lord Bayar extinguishes the flames by channeling energy through the young wizards. Raisa sees gray wolves, omens said to appear to queens at turning points of danger, but Raisa's mother, Queen Marianna, notices nothing. Captain Edon Byrne of the Queen's Guard voices suspicion, but the queen praises Lord Bayar and dismisses Byrne.

Back at court, Raisa chafes under palace life after three years at Demonai Camp, where she was fostered with her father Averill Lightfoot Demonai's clan family. She flirts with Micah, though a romance with a wizard violates the Naéming. Amon Byrne, the captain's son and Raisa's childhood friend, returns from Wien House, the military academy at Oden's Ford, and tells her about the poverty and corruption plaguing Fellsmarch. They share a kiss, but Amon insists their stations make a relationship impossible. Micah confronts them outside Raisa's room, and Amon draws his sword to protect her.

Han visits Lucius Frowsley, a blind hermit, who tells an alternative history of the Demon King, whose real name was Alger Waterlow, a young wizard who eloped with Queen Hanalea out of love. Waterlow's desperate spell to break a siege caused the Breaking. Lucius identifies the amulet as a Waterlow relic and warns Han the Bayars will kill him for it. Back in Fellsmarch, Han is cornered by the rival Southie gang led by Shiv Connor; when Shiv unwraps the amulet, it explodes with green light. Han hides it in a stone forge in his stable yard.

Raisa's grandmother, Elena Demonai, gives her the Running Wolves ring, a talisman once belonging to Hanalea that protects against wizard charms. Raisa enlists Amon as her intelligence gatherer; he tells her about eight murdered Southie gang members and the prime suspect, a streetlord called Cuffs. Raisa plans a covert trip to Southbridge Temple, where she meets her father and gives Speaker Jemson, the temple cleric, suitor gifts to sell for his school, establishing the Briar Rose Ministry.

Han arrives at the temple to warn about arrested Raggers. Amon recognizes him as Cuffs. Han seizes Raisa as a hostage and drags her into Ragmarket, taking her to a cellar hideout. The next morning Raisa escapes, but Han rescues her from a group of Raggers. Learning the Guard is torturing prisoners, Raisa infiltrates the guardhouse alone and rallies beaten prisoners to overpower Sergeant Gillen when he threatens her. Amon negotiates the prisoners' release, and Captain Byrne and Averill fabricate a cover story to protect Raisa.

Han stages his own death by planting bloody clothes by the river. Three cloaked, glowing figures corner him and demand information about 'Shiv,' the false name Han gave Micah on the mountain. Shiv Connor is soon found tortured and dead. Han is shaken but does not yet grasp the connection between his lie and the killings.

At the Bayars' name day party, Raisa wears an emerald serpent necklace, a Bayar gift, at her mother's insistence, leaving Elena's protective ring behind. While dancing with Micah, who wears a matching ring, Raisa becomes dangerously disoriented. Amon intercepts them, and Averill recognizes the jewelry as a seduction amulet, which creates powerful attraction between its wearers. He rips the necklace from Raisa's neck, revealing a burn on her skin.

At the clan's solstice naming ceremony, Elena reveals Dancer's secret: His mother was enchanted by a wizard stranger years ago, and Dancer has inherited wizard powers. He must leave for Mystwerk House, a wizard training academy at Oden's Ford, to learn control. The Demonai warriors, the clans' elite fighters, are hostile to the revelation, and Dancer storms off.

On Raisa's name day, with Averill and Captain Byrne sent to Chalk Cliffs by the queen, Micah brings her to the queen's privy chamber, decorated for a wedding. Queen Marianna announces Raisa will marry Micah immediately, a union forbidden by the Naéming. When Micah casts a calming charm, Elena's ring absorbs the magic. Raisa feigns compliance and convinces her mother to let her return to her room. Her nurse Magret, sworn to the Gray Wolf line through a secret order called Hanalea's Maidens, helps her into riding clothes. Raisa flees through a secret passage to the rooftop garden, where Amon waits, bound by an ancient ceremony to protect her. At the stables, Averill and Captain Byrne have just arrived after surviving an ambush that confirms the Guard is compromised. Raisa will travel to Oden's Ford disguised as a cadet, escorted by Amon. As the drawbridge rises behind them, they ride west.

Han returns to Fellsmarch when Mari falls gravely ill. He retrieves the amulet to sell, but Gavan Bayar is waiting at the dealer's shop. Bayar kills the dealer and reveals he sent the wizard assassins after "Shiv," the false name Han used on the mountain. Han grasps that his lie caused all the Southie murders. He stabs Bayar and escapes, only to find his home engulfed in flames set on Bayar's orders. His mother and sister are dead inside.

At a secret clan council, the elders reveal Han's true identity: He is the only living gifted descendant of Alger Waterlow, the Demon King, through a son Hanalea bore in secret. Lucius reveals he is Hanalea's second husband, over a thousand years old, cursed with immortality to carry the truth. Elena explains she made Han's silver cuffs as an infant to suppress his powers and offers a choice: Keep them and live quietly, or have them removed and train at Oden's Ford as the clan's wizard champion. Fueled by grief, Han chooses to have the cuffs removed. Magic erupts from him in a torrent of flame, and Dancer helps him channel it.

The novel ends with two parallel departures. Raisa rides west from Demonai Camp with Amon and his cadets toward Oden's Ford. Han and Dancer ride south from Marisa Pines through war-torn Arden toward the same destination. Neither pair knows the other is coming.