RiftBound

They call it a palace. Alara knows a cage when she wakes in one.

She’s fifteen, she was raised on Earth, and she’s been carried across the sea to A’kosh Na, a bright city that keeps her like something on a shelf. They give her clean sheets, food, and a room she’s not allowed to leave. The magisters who rule the city take notes and smile at one another while they decide what to do with her. The captain who brought her has been smiling at her since the boat.

At night she misses her bed, the hula dancer on her nightstand, her mom’s stupid ceramic swan.

She can drift into other people and wake behind their eyes, sometimes steering, sometimes only watching. Now she’s learning to choose when and who, and she hasn’t finished paying for it.

On Earth, the ones she left behind are running a rescue out of a shop on Tuesday nights. Freddy still carries the guilt. Madison went hard and stayed that way. Alex gives the orders now, in short sentences. Brian’s twelve and has the steadiest hands in the room. Every time they open the door, something on the other side notices.

And a soldier is crossing two worlds to find her, hunting a girl who never existed, because the story that reached him was wrong.

They're all going to arrive. None of them the way they planned.

The Colors of Malent: DreamBound · StormBound · RiftBound · BladeBound (upcoming)