The Kingston Cycle is a fantasy trilogy by C.L. Polk, a Canadian author. The series follows the romance of Miles in Witchmark, his sister Grace in Stormsong, and his friend Robin in Soulstar. And, of course, their quest to save their country from not only magical interference, but from its own corruption and the aftermath of uncovering it.
The series has been described as Sherlock Holmes meets Fullmetal Alchemist because of the story's focus on internal politics and rooting out mysteries.
This series contains examples of:
- Altar Diplomacy: This is the default for marriage among the noble houses of Aeland; Avia and Grace commiserate over having formerly been "engaged to a corporation" and to a parliamentary voting bloc, respectively. Defied when Grace refuses to marry the new King to her father's horror, promising to remain his Honest Advisor instead.
- And I Must Scream: Happens to Sir Christopher at the end of the series. After his death, Robin uses her powers to bind his soul into a tree, to live trapped as a tree for however as it's alive. After she apologizes to amaranthine's leader for her hastiness in punishment, she is answered that they are patient, and when he will go into the Solace, they will be waiting, and they will have they revenge.
- Archnemesis Dad: Miles and Grace's father, Sir Christopher, embodies all the worst traits of Aeland's nobility. He's the main antagonist of Witchmark and works behind the scenes throughout the rest of the series.
- Ban on Magic: Aeland has officially banned all witchcraft and now incarcerates witches in asylums. Unofficially, Aeland's government maintains a secret Supernatural Elite who control the country's weather.
- Barred from the Afterlife: When the Amaranthine learn the truth of the asylums, they close the Solace to human dead until the situation is resolved, causing their souls to linger as ghosts instead. The ban is lifted at the end of Soulstar.
- Bedlam House: In Aeland, those with magic who aren't part of the aristocracy are convicted as criminals and locked up in horrifying asylums. Not only are their souls fed into the Aether network there, the asylums force them to breed the next generation of victims.
- Brown Note Being: The Amaranthine are so beautiful that their appearance is actually dangerous to human minds. Miles can only manage a quick glance at Tristan's true form, whereas a famous artist went mad after he painted an un-glamoured Amaranthine lady.
- Can't Live Without You: Thanks to their Synchronization, Tristan and Miles literally can't live without each other.
- Cassandra Truth: Wild claims that the Hundred Houses of Aeland are full of witches are commonly known as a sign that a witch has been driven mad by their power and needs to be locked away... just like the Hundred Houses intended.
- Chore Character Exploration: When Robin and her Wrongfully Committed spouse Zelinde are reunited after twenty years apart, the truth that it's too late for them to have children hits home at dinnertime. Robin flees to the kitchen, Zelinde follows, and they distract themselves with the dishes while they console each other.
- Combat Medic: Miles is a doctor who is also a veteran. While he doesn't fight much in the series, he is certainly capable.
- De-aged in Death: When Sir Christopher is hanged for his crimes at the end of Soulstar, his spirit reverts from old age to the prime of life in seconds, apparently eager to take revenge.
- Energy Absorption: The Invisibles use their Secondaries to drain their magic and use for themselves—and their Secondaries are often family members or someone similar, and they have no choice in the matter.
- Energy Donation: The Invisibles perform Weather Manipulation on a continent-wide scale by funneling all their power into a single elected Voice, who directs and shapes the magic.
- Fate Worse than Death: At the end of Soulstar, Miles and Grace's father is hanged for his crimes against souls; his own soul is fused with an oak tree, leaving him blind, deaf, mute, and helpless for as long as it lives; and the Grand Duchess implies that she'll personally take over his punishment when the tree dies.
- Food as Characterization: Grace's relationship with Avia is always underscored by the fact that Grace is a tremendously wealthy noblewoman and Avia went from Riches to Rags. It rises to the surface when Grace's servants serve them a Simple, yet Opulent breakfast, including candied oranges, while outside, much of the country is being pushed towards starvation by a brutal winter.
- Forced Transformation:
- One of the punishments the Amaranthine Grand Duchess can mete out is to be transformed into a Horse of a Different Color and put to work. This fate befalls the villain of Stormsong when his crimes are exposed.
- Shortly after this, Tristan inflicts the beginning of a Slow Transformation into a beast on a guard, starting with one hand. After the guard flees, he admits that it was an illusion and he doesn't actually have that power.
- Gaslamp Fantasy: While the series is not based on any country's cultural markers in particular, the series' technology level seems to resemble roughly this period, with carriages, bikes, and electricity that is rooted in magic.
- Glamour: Tristan and the other Amaranthines use magic to disguise their true, utterly captivating appearances to allow them to go more-or-less unnoticed, or at least stop people from standing in shock staring. Of course, even glamoured, Tristan is an uncommonly handsome man, and photographs reveal their true forms.
- The Good Chancellor: After her father's fall from "grace," Grace takes over his role as chancellor to the queen, trying to help repair the mess of the country after the events of Witchmark.
- Headache of Doom: Grace's Weather Manipulation powers give her severe headaches when a dangerous storm is approaching. One such storm early in Stormsong cripples the country's economy despite her best efforts, and the headaches from another nearly incapacitate her while she's trying to prepare for the climactic scenes.
- Horrible Housing: Avia lives in a small apartment in a run-down tenement building since her wealthy family cut her off. Grace is taken aback when she learns that the building is indirectly owned by her ex-fiancé's family.
- Inhumanly Beautiful Race: The Amaranthine are incredibly attractive to humans—all of them—so much so that they disguise their true appearances to be less distracting.
- Intrepid Reporter: Grace's love, Avia, is a formerly well-too-do business heiress who has abandoned her family to be an investigative reporter—and she is tenacious about getting the story, even when it pits her against the most powerful people in the country.
- Land of Faerie: The Amaranthine live in the Solace, a beautiful otherworld with a somewhat mutable reality. It also doubles as the afterlife for human souls.
- Living Battery: Miles was born expected to be bonded to his sister to serve as a magical reservoir for her. He was very much opposed to this.
- Loophole Abuse: In Soulstar, Zelinde receives a royal order to turn over the design for a revolutionary new power generator. To comply, Zelinde sends copies to the Crown and to every newspaper in town, thereby destroying the fantastically valuable royal monopoly on the industry.
- Magical Star Symbols: "Starred One" is an epithet for witches. They can bequeath their Soul Power to each other upon death, which shows to Aura Vision as a star floating by their head, called witchmarks, or "soulstars" to be polite. By Soulstar, Miles has a fairly intimidating crown of thirteen.
- Married at Sea: In Samindan culture, any ship's captain is authorized to perform marriages. Robin and her childhood sweetheart Zelinde were married in secret by a ferryman over Zelinde's family's objections, which somewhat bemuses Robin's family when they learn.
- Meaningful Rename: Miles took his current name while Faking the Dead, but he continues to use it after his identity is discovered, as a renunciation of the Archnemesis Dad he was named after.
- Non-Heteronormative Society: Aeland is reminiscent of Edwardian England, but non-binary genders and same-sex relationships are accepted as a matter of course. Cultural groups like the Samindans are similarly accepting of Polygamy but practice "triangle marriages" discreetly, as bigamy remains officially illegal.
- Shared Life Energy: Tristan binds his life force to Miles's to save Miles's life at the end of the book—and since Tristan is basically an immortal god, Miles is likely to live for a long time. As a bonus, Tristan says it's the equivalent of marriage in his society.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Miles is a former army doctor with very serious PTSD, who has returned home from the war and works in a veterans' hospital.
- Sinister Suffocation: The villain of Stormsong commits one murder by magically forcing the victim to stop breathing. Grace talks the victim's father into an Enemy Mine arrangement by describing what a torturous death it was.Grace: It took three minutes... three minutes where she was terrified. Three minutes where she saw her death coming and couldn't do anything to stop it."
- Soul-Powered Engine: Miles discovers the horrifying truth that his country has been powering the country's electricity with bound human souls.
- Speculative Fiction LGBT: The series is a fantasy series focused on queer romances: Miles and his male lover, Tristan; Grace, who falls in love with another woman; and Robin and her nonbinary lover, Zelinde. Lining up the book covers even produces the bi pride flag.
- Sterility Plague: The Amaranthine threaten Aeland's nobility with a Curse of sterility for their crimes. It's not an idle threat; when an Amaranthine told a historical king that "You will wither", his wife immediately miscarried, his entire bloodline became infertile, and his dynasty fell out of power well before it died out.
- Superior Species: The Amaranthine are ageless, impossibly beautiful, and powerfully magical; their Grand Duchess is a caring and just ruler who outranks all human monarchs; and they preside over the human afterlife with the Makers' authority.
- Supernatural Suffocation: Happens twice in Stormsong:
- The villain is revealed to have committed murder by using Sympathetic Magic to force the victim to stop breathing.
- When they confront each other, Grace turns the tables by fine-tuning her Weather Manipulation power to suck the air out of the villain's lungs, briefly staggering them.
- Synchronization: At the end of Witchmark, Miles and his lover Tristan have their life forces bound together to save Miles's life.
- Uptown Girl: Grace, one of the most wealthy and privileged people in the country, gets into a relationship with Avia, a poor reporter. Though Grace is far more moral than most aristocrats, her status blinds her to many of Aeland's injustices at first; she chooses Avia over Prince Severin because Avia unrelentingly challenges her to become a better person.
- Weather Manipulation: The Invisibles keep Aeland free of the worst winter storms and cyclones with magic.
- Will Not Tella Lie: Amaranthines will never lie. It seems they have some powers that makes what they say turn real. Like when one said to a king "You will wither"; his wife immediately miscarried and his entire bloodline became infertile.
- Wrongfully Committed: The government of Aeland maintains the widely-believed lie that witches inevitably go mad so they can be locked up in asylums and have their Soul Power extracted to fuel the power grid. As a bonus, any claims that Aeland's nobility are a secret Supernatural Elite are taken as a sign that the witch has completely lost her mind.
