29 parts Complete MatureEvery year on February 8th, every fourteen-year-old is taken.
No one knows where they go until it's their time. The place is hidden, the training brutal, the purpose clear: prepare them for the wars of a world kept in shadow. It's not punishment. It's not exactly a rescue either. It's something in between - a shift from innocence into something far more dangerous.
When Jaquetta Virellith is taken, she stands out from the start. With violet hair and powers born from nightmare, she sees things no one else can - visions of death, destruction, and suffering that leave her body frozen and her soul shaken. Her fears are as unique and frightening as her gift: a terror of losing control, of tight spaces, of food, of sickness. She keeps them hidden behind a stillness that unsettles even the instructors.
By her side is Liri Thalen, fierce, funny, and full of fire, whose bright pink braids and rapid-flash movement power make her impossible to miss - or ignore. But even Liri has fears she won't admit aloud: the dark, being left behind, and not being enough when it matters.
Kael Drennor, with dusk-blue hair and shields made of light, is built to protect - and yet he's crumbling inside. Haunted by a fear of deep water and the secrets he keeps buried, he doesn't expect to feel drawn to Jaquetta. But something in her silence echoes his own.
And Rowen Stride, silver-haired and sharp-tongued, has powers rooted in sound and humor hiding something quieter - a fear of failure, of being forgotten, of being truly known. Liri gets under his skin in ways no one else can.
Together, they will be tested. Their fears will be used against them. And some of them won't come out the same.
But for him...
he couldn't resist her beautiful sapphire blue eyes.