The Gathering Dark (The Kingkiller Duology #1)

"Dark shalt beest this fire,
'Twill gathereth forth.
Above art Nine bright shin'rs,
The dark shalt smoth'r them all."

She was to be the guardian of the realm, the holder of the threads of existence that bound all the magic in the world, as her ancestors were before her. Vaerys Galaenys is no stranger to assassins, those who wish to hold the power that ties every man and beast in the Isles of Ula'ree. The night of her mother, Aenora's death, the burden of the threads of existence passes on to her, branding her queen of the isles at the young age of eleven.

But Fate is a fickle thing, and she was about to tip the scales in another's favor.

Ragaevor Celinarys was a name spoken only in hushed tones. A man who had conquered the binds on his power, the ones placed by Vaerys's ancestors who hoped to limit the greed of men. But some, those who loathe the Galaenys queens for their binds on magic, claim Ragaevor is no man at all, but perhaps a son of the Nine gods themselves. None of that matters the night Vaerys' mother dies. He has come, and he comes for her power.

When her mother's Advisor Paramount, Lord Caildish, offers a solution, Ragaevor's battalions at the gates, Vaerys grants him a seed of power. Just enough to send her back in time, where she might be safe from Ragaevor. Thrust nigh on eight hundred years in the past, Vaerys knows not who she is. She grows up Ahresa Ennion, the baseborn child of Lord Rahaellis of Ironforge. She eats at the lord's table and is schooled alongside the lord's own children. Yet even so, something haunts her. Every time she gazes at her reflection she remembers a name. Vaerys. Aenora. Ragaevor. She knows that if she forgets these names, everything she is will cease to exist.

But even eight hundred years may not be far enough from Ragaevor, and he has new plans for Vaerys.