Seventeen-year-old Lilik is gutterborn and sick of it. Done groveling to the tyrannical trader class and watching her family suffer, she is ready to be a hero. And the opportunity has finally arrived. Lilik's nation is under siege by brutal sea tribes. But there is hope: on a distant volcanic island, a months-long night has fallen. An expedition plans to set sail, including young women-all trader-class-who will harness powerful magic gathering in the island's dark. Blind to the consequences, Lilik bluffs her way aboard and plunges into the dark. Shortly after landfall, disaster strikes the...

Lilik is a survivor. After the disastrous expedition to the island volcano, Ioene, she is home with a warning. The malevolent tyrant, Mieshk Ulstat, is gathering devastating magical power. Unchecked, Mieshk will obliterate Kiriilti civilization. But when the ruling Trader Council refuses to heed her, Lilik turns to her own kind: the gutterborn. As Lilik rallies rebels from the slums, she delves into her abilities as a soul priestess through contact with a nightforged dagger. Tyrak, the soul imprisoned within the blade, mistakes Lilik for his love from centuries past. Through their complicated...

Lilik is on the warpath. Behind her, House Ulstat is a smoking pit. Ahead, Mieshk Ulstat wields terrible magic from within an impregnable fortress. The battle approaches. Never mind that Lilik's fighters are actually a ragtag assortment of smugglers and thieves. Forget that something is terribly wrong with the aether, leaving Lilik's magic unpredictable. Lilik is the last hope for stopping Mieshk's cataclysm. Unfortunately, Lilik's problems aren't limited to insurmountable odds and questionable allies. Ioene still holds secrets. A dark force has awakened in the island's heart. And it's...

Tainted magic spills from a crack between worlds. Quakes rattle the Atal Empire, opening rifts that sunder cities. As the land shatters and betrayals cleave the Emperor's court, ancient power awakens in a flame-haired young woman.

Savra, a miner on a remote coast, lives in innocence of her Emperor's savage rule. Only her father's disappearance--and the rumors of his rebel connections--break her illusion. But when she's suddenly torn from her home, turned pawn in the plots of madmen, a chance meeting with a young man provides the first glimpse of her tangled destiny.

For nineteen...