The Ruins Beneath Us

The first installment in a fantasy series, the story follows Lyria, an 18-year-old Elf living in hiding with her mother in the remote Ironwoods. Centuries earlier, a human tyrant named Verdin the Vanquisher waged the Long War against the ancient Elven kingdom of Evermore, using dragons to raze its capital and founding the Verdish Empire. Under Verdish rule, Elven culture and magic are outlawed, and Elves born with bloodborne magical abilities called Talents are hunted and executed. Lyria possesses such a Talent: the power to perceive and manipulate the threads of living things' life forces. Unlike typical Talents, hers causes searing pain and resists her control, so her mother, an Elven Healer and potioneer, has kept Lyria in seclusion since the power manifested in childhood.

When her mother leaves to investigate rumors of a plague near Sulnik, the icy kingdom to the north, Lyria begs to go but is refused. Days later, she hears a boy screaming in the forest. Unable to let him die, she runs past the protective ward spells surrounding their cottage and finds a young man fighting a Moragorion, a massive amphibious daemon. Her physical attacks fail, so Lyria uses her Talent to destroy the creature from the inside. The boy is critically wounded, and she spends days healing him.

The boy introduces himself as Finn. He came from Crown City, Verdinae's capital, to stop his younger brother from hunting a fyrehound, a creature sacred to Elves. Over the following days, Lyria and Finn grow close through conversations about their families; she admits she has never had a friend her own age. Before Finn departs, three Sulish mercenaries approach the cottage, which Lyria's earlier breach of the wardlines has left unprotected by its concealment spells. Finn kills all three, revealing training by swordmasters who served in the Verdish military. After an emotional farewell, he leaves.

Soldiers of the Royal Guard soon arrive, led by Captain Edmund Roburn, carrying a letter that reveals Finn is Prince Finneas Thorne, son of King Rodrick, the empire's most fanatical anti-Elf ruler. He claims a devastating plague threatens Verdinae and asks Lyria to serve as royal apothecary and develop a cure in secrecy. Torn between fear and desire for freedom, Lyria agrees.

The journey takes Lyria past Rodrick's Wall, a hundred-foot barrier crowned with the severed heads of Elves. At the palace, Queen Davina tasks her with completing the work of the previous apothecary, Ragglestaff, who died while developing a cure called the omnidraught. Cygnus, the 19-year-old Head Healer, greets Lyria with contempt, dismissing her as unqualified. She endures weeks of menial assignments while studying Ragglestaff's notes and befriending Daisy, a cheerful nurse who warns her about Finn's reputation for pursuing and discarding women.

When Finn returns with wounded soldiers, he invites Lyria to a feast. The evening turns horrific when Damien, the youngest prince, publicly beheads an Elven prisoner as entertainment. Lyria flees to the gardens, where her Talent erupts uncontrollably. In a hidden garden, Finn reveals that an Elven insurgency backed by the kingdom of Ursandor is fighting the empire. Lyria finds an injured fox, secretly heals it with her Talent, and names it Dante. When Finn punches Cygnus and fractures his orbital bone during a confrontation, Lyria visits Cygnus at his sickbed. Cygnus reveals that Finn captains the Frumentari, the Crown's intelligence network tasked with hunting Elves who possess Talents. That night, Lyria sneaks into Cygnus's room and secretly uses her Talent to repair the nerve damage around his eyes.

Cygnus later confronts Lyria about her Elven identity, revealing his own half-Elven heritage. He pushes her into an Everwillow, an ancient tree that serves as a magical portal, plunging them into caverns beneath Crown City. Cygnus explains that after the Long War, Queen Soleste led surviving Evermoreans underground into Ruin, an ancient city built around the Everwell, the sacred source of all magic, now sealed behind magical barriers called the Goddesses' Gates. They fight off giant skakabri, venomous daemon scorpions, and reach the first gate's riddle but cannot solve it. They agree to work together to unlock the gates.

Over the following weeks, Lyria secretly heals critical patients in the hospital each night while her attempts to complete the omnidraught fail repeatedly, suggesting a missing ingredient. Her relationship with Finn deepens. At a name day celebration for Sebastian, Finn's eldest brother, she privately acknowledges she is falling in love with Finn. Her emotional clarity triggers the solution to the first riddle: blood. On their second expedition, Lyria and Cygnus open the gate but face banshees, skeletal daemons that lure victims with familiar voices. They survive and reach a second riddle but return without solving it.

On midsummer night, the palace is attacked by Ursandorn soldiers and Elves. Sebastian is struck by 12 arrows, and Lyria uses her Talent openly in front of Finn to save his life. Afterward, she discovers the omnidraught's missing catalyst is her own blood and completes the potion. She entrusts Daisy with the finished draught and her notes so Cygnus can reproduce it. Finn proposes marriage with the Rashielle diamond, an ancient heirloom ring. Lyria accepts the ring without giving a definitive answer and chooses to be intimate with Finn for the first time. The next morning, she connects the ring to the second gate's riddle. She and Cygnus place the diamond in the pedestal, opening the second gate. A third gate forces them to separate, presenting each with a devastating vision. Lyria sees Finn coldly describing her to King Rodrick as "grotesquely starved for affection" and proposing to manipulate her into creating the omnidraught. Cygnus revives her after the vision nearly kills her, and the city of Ruin appears.

In Ruin, Lyria reunites with her mother, who reveals she has led the Elven rebellion for 19 years. Her mother explains that Soleste rules Ruin as a tyrant with the ability to steal other Elves' powers through touch. When a Faerie queen proclaimed Soleste's newborn daughter the prophesied Heir of Evermore, Soleste slaughtered everyone present except Lyria's mother and the baby. Lyria's mother broke free of Soleste's mental control and smuggled the child to safety. That child is Lyria; Soleste is her biological mother.

Devastated, Lyria returns to the palace during a military ball where King Rodrick announces the omnidraught is not a plague cure but a weapon to permanently strip Elves of their Talents. There was never a plague. Daisy enters carrying trays of the reproduced omnidraught, confirming the betrayal: Everything in the archway vision was real. Lyria snatches Rodrick's ceremonial crown, an artifact named for the Elven goddess Elowyn, and runs. When Damien grabs her, she shatters every bone in his hand with her Talent. Guards corner her in the garden, and Queen Davina holds a knife to Finn's throat. Lyria surrenders to save him.

In her tower cell, Finn confesses the plague was a hoax, the fyrehound hunt a cover for finding the Heir of Evermore, and his manipulation deliberate from the start. He offers the omnidraught as a path forward: If she drinks it and loses her Talent, they could still be together. Lyria rejects him utterly. Princess Sandria, who has been covertly serving Ursandor's interests, returns the crown and blasts the cell door open with her own Talent, wildfyre projected from her hands. Lyria fights through the palace with Cygnus, who swam back from Ruin to help. At the critical moment, Captain Roburn turns against the Crown, sacrificing his life so Lyria and Cygnus can reach the Everwillow and escape.

In the epilogue, Lyria settles into Ruin with her mother, Cygnus, and Dante, emotionally shattered by the accumulated betrayals. She severs her friendship with Cygnus, explaining that everyone she has loved has betrayed her. Having accepted that her Talent is a gift rather than a curse, Lyria finds an ancient Elf called the Mage who has been waiting for her. She drops to her knees and begs him to teach her.