Schooled in Magic

Every magician who wants to be great goes through an apprenticeship...a period of training under a master who will hopefully raise them to mastery themselves. For Emily, the time has come to begin her long-awaited apprenticeship with Void. She must master her powers or risk being destroyed by them. But as Void introduces her to levels and layers of magic she never even knew existed, she finds herself fighting desperately to keep up, to defeat challenge after challenge, to prove her worth to study under him, and to survive a training course that has killed lesser magicians.

Three of the most powerful necromancers in the Blighted Lands have banded together into an unstoppable force, one capable of breaching the Craggy Mountains and laying waste to the lands beyond. If they cannot be stopped, they will tear the Allied Lands apart. Nothing will survive. And so Emily, the Necromancer’s Bane, is called upon once more to stand in defense of her adopted homeland and stop the necromancers in their tracks. Her presence may be the only thing keeping the Allied Lands from shattering as the war turns hot once again.

The student witches are growing increasingly reckless, preying on the mundanes below the mountains as their tutors plot and scheme to take advantage of the chaos. And no one seems to know why. Emily is in no condition to intervene. But she cannot refuse. Heading to Laughter, Emily finds herself dragged into a world of schoolgirl games, staffroom politics, and a deadly plot aimed at the heart of the Allied Lands themselves.

A brutal uprising in the Kingdom of Alluvia has shaken the Allied Lands, and Emily finds herself accused of starting it. Desperate, all too aware the kingdom is on the verge of becoming a vortex of chaos, Emily travels to Alluvia in the hopes of calming both sides long enough to secure peace. However, she's unaware that the uprising is merely the first step in a plan to shatter the Allied Lands beyond repair.

In the aftermath of the struggle, long-held grudges are boiling over and conflicts are breaking out. The monarchs want to settle border disputes, the aristocrats want to impose their will on monarchs and peasants alike, the commoners want freedom and justice, and the magical communities want to rule all or else separate themselves from the mundanes. And most of this chaos is being orchestrated by Emily’s mentor, the sorcerer Void. He believes the only path to salvation for the Allied Lands is to make himself the undisputed ruler of the world.

Eight years ago, the Sorcerer Void saved Emily's life. To Emily, Void became, in so many ways, the father she'd never had. And yet Void kept a secret from her. To save the Allied Lands from themselves, to keep them from being destroyed by the necromancers or torn apart by their short-sighted rulers, he embarked on a plan to launch a coup and reunite the long-dead empire, a plan that can only end in total war or a permanent living death. He must be stopped. And now, all that stands between him and his goal is his adopted daughter, Emily herself.

Emily had hoped for some peace in the wake of the war. A chance to sit down, relax, and come to terms with everything that happened over the last year. But it was not to be. The post-war world is in chaos, with mundane revolutionary factions clashing with magical supremacists, kings fighting to maintain what remains of their power, magitech changing the world, and shadowy forces preparing themselves to take advantage of the coming conflict… all unaware of a growing threat rising from the long-forgotten past.

On a peace mission, desperately trying to hammer out a settlement that will keep the radicals and reactionaries from starting yet another civil war, Emily is attacked by Marah, a young woman rescued by her enigmatic master and turned into a living weapon to start the chaos. Seeing something of herself in the girl, Emily takes her as an apprentice both to give her a better chance at life and to use her to track down her master, who appears to have plans of his own...

For generations, the Magicians of Celeste have chafed at the limitations of the Compact, the treaties between the Magical and Mundane communities of the Allied Lands, and worked towards their abolition, envisaging a world in which magical supremacy would be established, allowing them to explore newer and greater fields of magic while keeping the powerless mundanes firmly under control. Their dreams were not taken seriously—until now.

Living in a harsh village in a harsh land, Gennady had no reason to expect anything other than a life that was nasty, brutish, and short. When a fellow villager tried to kill him, Gennady discovered he had magic and rapidly found himself dispatched to Whitehall School to learn how to use his gift. Whitehall is far from perfect, and as Gennady struggles to keep up with the rest of his class, he finds himself being drawn to some very dark paths indeed,