Wild Magic (immortals, #1)

The first book in The Immortals quartet, set in the fictional kingdom of Tortall from Tamora Pierce's earlier Song of the Lioness series, follows a thirteen-year-old orphan named Daine as she discovers a rare form of magic that binds her to animals.

At a fair in Cría, the capital of the neighboring kingdom of Galla, Onua Chamtong seeks an assistant to drive a herd of ponies south to Tortall, where she serves as horsemistress for the Queen's Riders, a company of mounted fighters. A girl named Veralidaine Sarrasri, who goes by Daine, applies. She carries a powerful longbow and travels with only her pony, Cloud. She claims to be fifteen, but Onua's magic reveals she is thirteen. Daine demonstrates extraordinary skill with the ponies, establishing dominance over the herd's lead stallion by treating him as a dominant pony would. Onua hires her. Daine reveals that bandits killed her mother, grandfather, and all their animals; Cloud is the only family she has left.

On the road south, a badger visits Daine in a dream, claiming he promised her father he would watch over her and giving her a silver claw to maintain their connection. After they cross into Tortall, the badger appears again and tells her that if she listens hard enough, she can hear and call any animal. Three days later, creatures called Stormwings attack Daine and Onua in a marsh. Stormwings have human heads and torsos fused to steel-feathered bird wings and claws. They had been chasing a black hawk, which escapes into the reeds. Daine and Onua fight back with bows while wild birds rise to help. Daine shoots out one eye of the leader, Zhaneh Bitterclaws, who swears revenge. Many birds die, and Daine's body channels healing magic that revives the wounded before she faints.

She tracks the hawk by listening with her mind. The bird is strangely large and solidly black. She splints his broken wing, but over four days he grows feverish and begins to die. Onua sends a magical call for help.

Sir Alanna, the King's Champion known as the Lioness, arrives from her fortified coastal home of Pirate's Swoop with the King's Own, warriors who serve King Jonathan directly. She asks Daine to call the hawk by the name Arram Salmalín. There is a snap, and a large man lies where the bird had been. The hawk is Numair Salmalín, Tortall's most powerful sorcerer, who can shape-shift. He had been spying on a traitorous lord, was drugged, panicked into hawk form, and became trapped. That night, spidrens, giant spiders with human heads, attack the camp. These, like the Stormwings, are immortals sealed into the Divine Realms, the home of the gods, four centuries ago. Their reappearance suggests the ancient seal has broken.

Numair recovers and joins them for the journey to the capital. He tells Onua that Daine possesses wild magic, a rare power distinct from the conventional Gift that gives her a deep bond with animals. When Daine overhears and reacts angrily, Numair approaches her gently and begins teaching her meditation.

They arrive at the royal palace in Corus. Daine meets Queen Thayet, who commands the Riders, and the officers: Buriram Tourakom (Buri), the commander, and Sarge, a massive man who was once enslaved. Onua offers Daine permanent work as her assistant, and Daine accepts. At Onua's suggestion, she trades her cumbersome skirts for breeches, symbolizing her break from her old life.

When Stormwings attack the palace at dawn, animals swarm to Daine's defense. Numair, Alanna, and King Jonathan drive them off with magic. Jonathan meets Daine privately and explains that immortals are reappearing across the Eastern Lands, the wider region of kingdoms around Tortall, possibly released by mages from Carthak, the hostile empire across the Inland Sea. He asks Daine to let Numair train her. Numair promises he can teach her to heal animals, and she agrees.

Numair shows Daine the world's magical threads: Copper fire runs through every animal, including herself. He teaches her to call animals silently and pushes her to practice meditation. She progresses rapidly but hides a terrifying secret. During one deep meditation, she enters the consciousness of the pony herd and begins to forget she is human. Cloud senses the danger, races to the mess hall, and kicks the gate until Sarge opens it; Cloud then knocks Daine over, breaking the trance.

The Riders march south toward Pirate's Swoop for summer training. On the road, prompted by an angry dream from the badger, Daine confesses everything to Numair and Onua: After bandits killed her family, she tracked and killed them with a wolf pack, went wild on all fours, and denned with the wolves until Cloud bit her back to human awareness. The villagers hunted her as a monster. Numair enters her mind and places a magical barrier between her wild magic and her human essence, preventing future merging.

On the coast, Daine tests the barrier by entering a sea lion herd's consciousness and remains fully herself. She performs her first deliberate healing, mending an otter's broken leg through hours of concentrated effort. She nearly kills herself by accidentally stopping her own heart during meditation; Alanna revives her. At the deserted village of Buzzard Rocks, Daine communicates with two nesting griffins, enormous creatures with eagle heads and cat bodies, and brokers a peace between them and the humans.

At Pirate's Swoop, Daine meets Baron George Cooper, Alanna's husband, and grows close to the children staying at the fortress, including Alanna's son Thom, Prince Roald, and Princess Kalasin. When Alanna is lured away to fight ogres at a distant fief, bats swarm into Daine's loft. Through communication with the bats, she calculates that over 600 armed strangers have surrounded the castle. She maps their positions for George, and the village is evacuated inside the walls.

At dawn, a Carthaki-backed corsair fleet appears with war barges carrying catapults. A Stormwing delivers demands for Thayet, Roald, and Kalasin; George tears up the message. Numair exhausts himself holding off dampening spells that suppress the defenders' Gift so the castle's healers can function. Stormwings pour through a magical gate over the fleet. Daine fights with her bow and, after Onua argues that the animals deserve the right to fight for their home, organizes a sabotage campaign: Weasels cut bowstrings, bears destroy supplies, and foxes free enemy horses. A dragon, earlier pulled through one of the magical gates releasing immortals into the mortal world, attacks the fleet but is struck with liquid fire and sinks.

The previous night, Daine had immersed herself in the ocean to amplify her magic and reached a kraken, a miles-wide octopus-like creature lurking in deep water, showing it the fleet's location. Now the kraken's tentacles shoot from the sea, destroying ships. The dampening spells shatter. Alanna arrives with reinforcements and falls on the land raiders. Cloud gives Daine a burst of strength, and Daine shoots Zhaneh Bitterclaws through the neck, killing the Stormwing queen.

Daine sleeps for two days, then follows a vision from the dying dragon to a sea cave, where she finds a tiny silver dragonet, the baby the dragon had been carrying. Daine's wild magic had healed the kit in the womb. She names the dragonet Skysong, though everyone calls her Kitten. Multiple people offer Daine a home: Thayet at the palace, George at Pirate's Swoop, and Numair at his tower. Daine laughs, saying she has gone from having no home to having too many. Alanna welcomes her to Tortall.