Ina swears revenge and goes on the warpath not against just the bandits responsible but also the king, whom she blames for not protecting Amalska. Asra, horrified by the person her girlfriend is becoming, sets out to stop her, venturing away from her mountain. While doing so, she befriends a boy named Hal, becoming involved with many dangers while also seeking answers to her past.
Set in the same universe as Of Fire and Stars, it has the same author, Audrey Colburst, but is set centuries before and only loosely connected to the others. The book was published in 2018.
Tropes:
- Action Girl: Asra begins as a nonviolent healer, but grows into a fighter by necessity over the course of the book, effectively using her magic on opponents multiple times.
- Affectionate Nickname:
- Asra nicknames her lover Invasya as Ina.
- Hal mostly calls his sister Nismae Nis.
- Ambiguously Gay: Asra thinks Nismae is in love with Ina toward the end of the book by the way she's looking at her. It isn't shown whether she's right of they're together however (Ina's bisexual).
- Anti-Magic:
- Nismae has iron cuffs that stop magic from affecting her.
- Asra later gets a cloak which stops the Sight from being used on her.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Asra used her blood in a spell to dictate the future, wishing just that her lover Ina succeeds with her manifest the next day. This inadvertently results in Ina's whole family being murdered, along with the rest of the villagers, to Asra's horror.
- Beneath the Mask: Ina reveals to Asra she never loved her, only using her as a means of bettering her social status. Asra naturally is devastated hearing this.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Asra and Hal kiss passionately when they finally show their love for each other.
- Bisexual Love Triangle: Asra and Ina, two teenage girls, are lovers as the story begins. Ina then tells her she's engaged to a boy around their age in her village, which Asra's devastated by. This inspires her to help Ina obtain her manifest, which results in Garen's death along with all the other villagers accidentally, horrifying Asra. Even so, Asra hopes to get Ina back. It turns out that Ina never loved her or Garen though, and was only using them for her ends. Asra is bisexual as well, unusually, mentioning she had previous crushes on men before Ina. She starts to develop feelings for Hal over time, and begins a relationship with him.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Ina starts out appearing to be a warm, loving girlfriend for Asra. It turns out she's a Gold Digger though who never loved her, becoming increasingly bloodthirsty and ruthless.
- Blind Seer: Raisa is blind but also has the Sight, which keeps her even more aware of her surroundings than with normal vision.
- Blood Magic: Asra's blood causes flowers to bloom wherever it's spilled on the ground. She can also dictate the future through writing it in her blood, though doing so costs years from her life. A person who has this ability is called a bloodscribe. Her blood is also capable of lending abilities that she possesses to other people if used for a tincture too. Invoking a manifest can be done using her blood too, rather than asking the gods, but this is dangerous. This is described as the rarest of magical gifts.
- Blow You Away: Hal, as a son of the wind god, can summon wind to do things like blow dirt into enemies' eyes.
- Bond Creatures:
- Most Zumordans bond with a creature they choose. They become one being if successful, and can change between their shapes at will afterward.
- The Tamers are a minority of forest dwellers who disapprove of the above. They just bond with animals as familiars instead.
- Braids of Action: Asra grows into an Action Girl and always wears her hair in a single braid.
- Cast from Lifespan: Asra can use Blood Magic to dictate the future, but at the cost of losing years off her otherwise long lifespan.
- Challenging the Chief: The throne of Zumorda is won by the current monarch getting beaten by a challenger. Ina sets out to become queen this way.
- Charm Person: Hal is gifted with magical persuasion so he's able to talk some guards into letting both him and Asra go after they get arrested using this.
- Combat by Champion: Before facing down the king himself to win the throne, Ina must first defeat two champions who fight on his behalf.
- Country Mouse: Asra had lived in a mountain cave with only a village nearby all her life until she at last enters a city. The sights, smells and masses of city dwellers are hard for her to take at first, as she feels like her senses are assaulted by it all.
- Damsel in Distress: Asra is rescued by Hal when she's held captive by the Nightswifts for use of her blood.
- Dark Action Girl:
- Ina is a powerful fighter, casting fire on enemies. She's even more formidable in her form as a dragon. In her quest to gain the throne, Ina grows very brutal.
- Nismae, Hal's sister, is a trained assassin. There are several other women too in her group of assassins, the Nightswifts, who are capable as the men. She's ruthless and allied to Ina.
- De-power:
- Hal is drugged with peaceroot, a plant which prevents someone using any magic while it's in their system.
- Asra is later too when she's overpowered and knocked out.
- Depraved Bisexual: Ina has been with both a girl and boy. She's a ruthless girl who only used her lovers for her gain and grows increasingly bloodthirsty. It's downplayed however as her ex-girlfriend Asra is bisexual as well and isn't at all like this.
- Divine Date: Asra's parents were a god and a mortal who had been lovers, it turns out.
- Divine Right of Kings: Zumordan monarchs must have a bond with the gods, or the realm will fall into ruin. This starts to occur once Ina wins the throne without such a bond, but Asra fixes it with her gift.
- Don't Fear the Reaper: Although she looks pretty unsettling with white skin, red hair and black eyes, the shadow god is a kind and thoughtful woman, who's quite apologetic to her demigod daughter Asra for abandoning her.
- Doomed Hometown: Ina's village of Amalska is attacked by some bandits when everyone but her gathers for a meeting, with them all being burned alive.
- Duel to the Death: The fight that Ina has with the king to claim his throne is all or nothing, with the loser killed, which also goes for fighting his champions beforehand.
- Due to the Dead: Asra and Ina say prayers for the slain villagers together after finding them.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Asra goes through many dangers along with deep heartache but by the end she's found a kind boy whom she loves, raising their adoptive son together and has insured the future of Zumorda will be better.
- Emotion Eater: Raisa can feed on people's emotions nearby to energize herself.
- Energy Absorption:
- Asra can drain energy from living or inanimate things to fuel her magic it turns out.
- Raisa can gain energy by absorbing emotions from people nearby.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": The king is only called his title or "the boar king" (from his manifest), never his name.
- Familiar: The Tamers are forest people who take different animals as these.
- Family of Choice: Asra has always wanted a family, after being left with her surrogate mother Miriel without knowledge of her birth parents (aside from that one was a god). After she loses Miriel, it increases. Meeting with her birth mother disappoints Asra greatly, though she finds a new chosen family with Hal and Iman, the baby boy they adopt.
- Fictional Age of Majority: Zumordans come of age at seventeen.
- Fisher King: The Zumordan monarchs must have a bond with the gods. Otherwise, the gods will leave, causing the realm to decay. However, this is stopped by Asra using a blood spell to change the future.
- Fountain of Youth: Raisa uses her absorbed energy to make herself look much younger (she's a very old woman).
- Friend to All Living Things: Asra can sense life as one of her abilities. Whenever she needs plants, whom she's able to speak with by another ability, Asra always asks their permission to cut them.
- Gold Digger: Ina coldly reveals to Asra she never really loved her, nor Garen. She'd just seen them both as people she could use through their relationships to climb the social ladder.
- God of the Dead: The shadow god. It turns out she's Asra's mother too.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Asra's attempt to dictate the future on Ina's behalf accidentally causes the people of Amalska to be slaughtered by bandits. This includes Ina's whole family. She is naturally horrified by this. It turns out to be a common liability of using that gift.
- Good Is Not Soft: Asra is a kind-hearted healer who most of all wants to help people. Even so, in the story she grows into an Action Girl out of necessity to defend herself or her loved ones from harm.
- Handicapped Badass: Asra loses use of her left hand after she's stabbed in the wrist, severing tendons. It doesn't stop her from growing into a good fighter with her magic.
- Hand on Womb: Ina puts her hand on her stomach in the moment before telling Asra that she's pregnant from Garen.
- Have You Seen My God?: When Ina wins the throne without bonding to the gods, they leave Zumorda, abandoning the realm.
- Healing Hands: Asra is capable of healing people using magic. This involves placing both hands lightly on the affected area.
- Holding Hands: Asra holds Hal's, to his surprise, when they first start becoming close.
- Immortality Inducer: The Fatestone supposedy can give a person eternal life, and the boar king wants it for this purpose.
- Immortal Procreation Clause: Demigods like Asra will live for centuries more than mortals. They're incapable of having children, which pains her greatly, as she would love to be a mother. She gets her wish by another means, adopting a son.
- Immortal Ruler: The king wants to become this with the Fatestone, which can give whoever wears it eternal life.
- Intimate Healing: Asra has Hal lie against her while she's fighting a fever to keep her warm. She tries to tell herself this doesn't arouse her, but realizes she's lying.
- It's All My Fault: Asra is distraught when her spell accidentally results in the villagers of Amalska, save Ina, being murdered. Ina says not to blame herself, as she didn't intend it, but Asra does so anyway.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Ina is changed by bonding with a dragon, going from slaughtering the bandits who'd murdered her family to becoming utterly ruthless, letting Asra (her ex-girlfriend) get held prisoner for her ability and planning her seizure of the throne.
- Lack of Empathy: The king is utterly unsympathetic to Asra's concerns when she raises them to him. She's shocked by this, realizing that she has been wrong to support him as a result.
- Long-Lost Relative: Asra finds out about her half-brother (they have the same divine parent), but unfortunately he died centuries before.
- Loving a Shadow: The girl Asra believed Ina to be doesn't really exist. Ina doesn't really love her, and never did. She had used Asra (and Garen) just for her social advancement.
- MacGuffin: About midway through the story, Asra's told about the Fatestone, which permits the bloodscribes like her to use this ability without taking years off their own life. She sets out to find it, hoping to Set Right What Once Went Wrong. The king had been having people look into the Fatestone before, since it supposedly also can give eternal life, ordering his researcher killed in fear it might be taken by her.
- Mac Guffin Superperson: Asra has rare and powerful Blood Magic that can change the past, present or future. She keeps it secret for fear of people forcibly misusing it. Once others discover it, this is exactly what they set out to do, with forcible blood draws from her as she's imprisoned.
- Magic Pants: Ina's clothing changes with her when she turns into a dragon and back.
- Making a Splash: Asra conjures a huge horse made from water up in a river when she and Hal are cornered, which spirits them away from the Nightswifts, by a spell from her shed blood dripping into its waters.
- Marriage of Convenience: Ina became engaged to Garen as a means of furthering her prospects in their village. She hoped to become elder. It turns out the other reason is because she'd also become pregnant by him.
- Master of Illusion: Raisa fights Ina in part by conjuring up different illusions to mislead her.
- Mercy Kill: Asra kills Leozoar, a twisted old demigod who became a murderer and wants to die, at his explicit request, though she has very mixed feelings about it.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Asra is horrified when her spell goes wrong, inadvertently causing the people of Amalska to be slaughtered by bandits.
- The Needs of the Many: Both the king and Ina claim their rule over Zumorda would be for the good of all. Asra dictates the future to make sure Ina really is a good queen who acts in all her subjects' interest.
- Nice Girl: Asra is a kind and compassionate girl who doesn't want to hurt anyone, though she will very reluctantly in defense or herself or others. She's trained as a healer, appropriately enough, and much prefers caring for people.
- Nonhuman Nonbinary: The gods of water and spirit are genderfluid.
- Not Himself: After she's fused with a dragon, Ina abruptly becomes ruthless and bloodthirsty, slaughtering the bandits who'd murdered her family with relish then sets off to kill the king too whom she blames for allowing this. Her lover Asra is horrifies and doesn't recognize her, trying to stop Ina's plan. However, it turns out that Ina was always far more cold and self-interested than Asra ever really knew earlier.
- Only Known by Their Nickname:
- Ina is mostly called this rather than her full name Invasya.
- Hal is only called his full name Phaldon a couple times.
- Parental Abandonment:
- Asra was left by her father as a baby to be raised by the herbalist Miriel. She does not know anything about her mother at first. It turns out that it's actually her mother, the shadow god, who left her, with her father being dead.
- Iman gets taken in by Asra and Hal as a newborn as his birth mother doesn't want him. Before he was even born his birth father had died already.
- Parental Substitute:
- Asra was raised by Miriel as a result of Parental Abandonment.
- Asra and Hal become foster parents to Iman as his birth mother Ina doesn't want to raise him.
- Playing with Fire: Ina fuses with a dragon, which allows her to conjure fire afterward in human form too.
- Power Perversion Potential: Hal used to be a spy, using his Farhearing for listening in on people's conversations. This wasn't what he liked though, and Hal is glad not to be doing it now.
- Pregnant Badass: Ina is a formidable Dark Action Girl capable of hurling fire and transforming into a dragon who it turns out is also pregnant. This doesn't ever slow her down until right when she goes into labor.
- Prematurely Grey-Haired: Asra finds a couple silver hairs after using her bloodscribe power for the second time, as it's Cast from Lifespan.
- Prequel: The book serves as one to Of Fire and Stars. Set centuries before, it shows the backstory for Queen Invasya when she was just a girl (who's a supporting character in both) and how Zumorda had come to the way things are there.
- Professional Killer: The Nightswifts were elite assassins serving the Crown, but turned on the king after he ordered some of their number killed. Since then, they have prices on their own heads and fight his forces.
- Protective Charm: Asra can cast a magical shield around herself to repel attacks. She gives others the power to as well through her Blood Magic.
- Really 700 Years Old: Raisa looks like an old woman most of the time, but she's actually even older, having lived for centuries now.
- Reduced to Dust: Ina kills Raisa through aging her until her very bones crumble to nothing.
- Religion is Magic: Asra has multiple magical abilities as a result of being a demigod. She also invoked different gods to cast spells. Invoking a person's manifest also usually is done by calling on the gods.
- Reluctant Warrior: Asra is a healer by trade who really doesn't want to hurt people. She's got no choice however increasingly to defend herself or other people during the story (though she tries mostly for just defensive actions, this doesn't always work). Asra is always troubled by it however.
- Revenge: Ina, after she fuses with a dragon, immediately uses it to hunt down and kill the bandits who'd murdered her family, horrifying her lover Asra. Then she sets out to kill the king too, blaming him for neglecting to protect her village against them.
- Rewriting Reality: Asra is a bloodscribe who can determine a future or alter the past through writing it in her blood. This has a high cost and also often some nasty unintended consequences though.
- Ring of Power: The Fatestone turns out to be a ring which can give its wearer eternal life along with Rewriting Reality by Blood Magic without the high cost which this usually results in. Naturally, it is the MacGuffin of the story.
- Rite of Passage: Zumordans come of age at seventeen by finding their manifest, a creature whom they fuse with and can then transform into.
- Second-Act Breakup: Asra briefly ends her new relationship with Hal after learning he'd lied to her. They get back together though before too long since Asra forgives him.
- Second Love: Asra is devastated after her relationship with her girlfriend Ina collapses, who's her First Love. She grows to love Hal over time however, with him treating her much better by far.
- Semi-Divine: Asra's father is a god. Being a demigod gives her multiple magical abilities, such as use of Blood Magic and her Supernatural Sensitivity. Also she'll live for centuries, unlike mortals, though at the cost of being unable to ever have children. She soon meets several more demigods too, who also have abilities due to their divine parent. However, it turns out she's mistaken about her specific parentage. It turns out that her mother is the shadow god, with her father having been a mortal.
- Sole Survivor: Ina is the only villager left after the rest of Amalska's people are massacred by bandits.
- Solitary Sorceress: Asra is a demigod with many magical abilities. She lives in a mountain cave alone when the story starts, though a village is nearby whose people she provides with her services, and Asra's mortal lover visits her frequently. Asra leaves home after a spell which she cast goes awry, resulting in the villagers having gotten slaughtered by bandits, with her lover as the Sole Survivor.
- Someone to Remember Him By: It turns out that Ina has become pregnant by Garen, who's dead when she tells Asra this.
- Street Urchin: Hal spent much of his childhood living on the street and had to survive by theft.
- Supernatural Fear Inducer: Raisa attacks Ina while they fight by making her experience her greatest fears.
- Supernatural Sensitivity: Asra can sense life and magic. She's also capable of hearing songs sung by the gods which mortals can't.
- Super-Senses:
- Hal and demigods like him whose father is the wind god have super hearing. Before he met Asra, he could already hear her prayers each day from miles off.
- Some magic users also can See hidden things like when magic is present.
- Surprise Pregnancy: Ina became pregnant by Garen unintentionally. As a result she became engaged to him, as was expected for a girl in her situation.
- Sympathetic Magic: Asra's magical abilities can be lent to other people if they use a tincture that's made from her blood.
- Teen Pregnancy: Ina is seventeen like Asra, and it turns out she's pregnant from her fiance Garen.
- Title Drop: Asra describes herself as the "inkmistress" of the king in the story's second half.
- Token Minority: Hal and Nismae, his older sister, are described as black people (the only two in the book).
- True Sight: The Sight lets the person who has it discern otherwise hidden things and also see right through illusions.
- Two Beings, One Body: A person taking a manifest entails fusing themselves with Bond Creatures. They can then shift forms at will between them.
- Un-Sorcerer: Nearly all Zumordens do magic. Those that can't are shunned and treated as second-class citizens.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Once a person takes their manifest, they can turn into the creature whenever they'd like.
