While fighting monsters that break through the barriers surrounding Apex City, Joy and her pack of magical hounds begin finding dead Psimons, and reporting the incidents only causes more trouble.

New York Times and USA Today bestselling authors Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory teamed up to write The Obsidian Trilogy, set in a wondrous world filled with magical beings, competing magic systems, and a titanic struggle between good and evil.
That world proved so popular with the creators and readers alike that Lackey and Mallory have returned to it with The Phoenix Unchained, Book One of The Enduring Flame,

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Bisochim joins forces with Harrier and Tiercel, and the three mages search desperately for a way to destroy Ahairan as she sends her magical forces against them and the desert nomads under their protection.

"Heralds Mags and Amily must continue to protect the realm of Valdemar while raising their children and preparing them to follow in their footsteps...The oldest, Justyn, has the Gift of animal Mindspeech--he can talk to animals and persuade them to act as he wishes. Justyn's dream is to follow in his father's footsteps as a Herald Spy, but has yet to be Chosen by his horse companion...Mags proposes that Justyn join a group of traveling players and...

While enjoying the Christmas season, Nan and Sarah, along with Dr. Watson and his wife Mary, are called to investigate when missing women reappear and their experiences while gone have driven them mad. Christmas is special for psychic Nan Killian, medium Sarah Lyon-White and their ward Suki. It is special for their friends, Doctor John Watson, and his wife Mary, both Elemental Masters, who have found great delight in the season seeing it through...

Herald Mags, the King of Valdemar's Herald Spy, has been developing a network of young informants who operate on the streets and also in the halls and kitchens of the wealthy and highborn. His wife Amily is King's Own Herald and finds it useful to be underestimated for there are dark things stirring in the shadows of Haven. Someone has discovered many secrets of the women of the Court and the Collegia and is using those secrets to terrorize and bully...

Marina is the cherished daughter of the wealthy Saverson family, practioners of Elemental Magic. But all is not well in this elegant, aristocratic household. Evil portents have warned her father that Marina will be killed before her eighteenth birthday by the hand of her own aunt, and no one is sure if the family magic is powerful enough to overturn the prophesy.

Eleanor Robinson, bound to the hearth by her stepmother, an Elemental Master of Earth, following the death of her father in World War I, has plenty of time to develop her own magical powers while her stepmother and stepsisters attempt to seduce a wealthy and handsome war hero.

A former captain in the Army of Karse, Alberich must take a perilous stand when his long-hidden psychic talents are revealed, and he is rescued from certain death and chosen to serve the queen of Valdemar, Karse's archenemy.

Talia, having mastered her psychic and empathic powers, is chosen to be a Herald by the Companions, but must face a testing period before she becomes the Queen's protector.