Chronicles of Elantra

Kaylin returned from the West March in one piece. She's not at home in the Imperial Palace and never intends to be. All she wants is normal garden-variety criminals and a place of her own. Of course, normal in her life involves a dragon as a roommate. She can't handle the new residents to the city she polices, because one of them is Nightshade's younger brother. Teela calls her to the fief. A family dispute has become a big problem: Castle Nightshade's latent magic is waking. And that's not all.

In the aftermath of a vicious battle between darkness and light, the city of Elantra has emerged victorious. But Shadows continue to haunt every corner of its streets…  Elantra stands strong, but countless numbers of Hawks, the city's staunchest protectors, were lost in the brutal attack. Humans, Barrani, Aerians, Leontines—none of the races emerged unscathed from the defense of the city. Homes were lost, families were scattered…and the outcast Barrani Lord Nightshade is missing from his castle in the fiefs.  Yet as the chaos surrounding the battle begins to wane, Private Kaylin Neya's duties must resume, despite her grief. Called in to investigate a triple murder in a quiet part of town, Kaylin and her companions are soon embroiled in a case that is anything but routine. Evidence of the deadly Shadows that still threaten the city leads to hints of ancient, forgotten magics…and everything can be traced directly to Ravellon, the heart of the Shadows and the darkness they contain.  But it is there that Lord Nightshade will be found —if he still survives.

New York Times bestselling author Michelle Sagara returns to the city of Elantra with a thrilling tale rife with ancient magic, assassination attempts and political intrigue.  Private Kaylin Neya already has Dragons and Barrani as roommates. Adding one injured, flightless Aerian to her household should be trivial. Sure, the Aerian is Sergeant Moran dar Carafel, but Kaylin's own sergeant is a Leontine, the definition of growly and fanged. She can handle one Aerian.  But when a walk to the Halls of Law becomes a street-shattering magical assassination attempt on the sergeant, Kaylin discovers that it's not the guest who's going to be the problem: it's all of the people who suddenly want Moran dar Carafel dead. And though Moran refuses to tell her why she's being targeted, Kaylin is determined to discover her secret and protect her at all costs—even if keeping Moran safe means dealing with Aerian politics, angry dragons and something far more sinister.

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES? Private Kaylin Neya thought her home couldn't possibly get more crowded. But when one of her housemates, Annarion, decides to undertake the Barrani Test of Name, his friends refuse to let him face his task alone, and Kaylin's sentient home, Helen, is the only structure capable of shielding the rest of Elantra from the magnitude of their power. Annarion and Mandoran almost caused the destruction of the High Halls once already. Add nine of their closest friends, and the danger is astronomically higher, especially since these guests are at the heart of a political firestorm. Imprisoned almost a millennium ago, their recent freedom threatens the rulership of several prominent Barrani families, and the machinations of those Lords make it almost impossible to tell friend from foe. As political tensions ramp up, the shadows beneath the High Halls are seeking a freedom that has never been possible before. Kaylin must find a way to keep those shadows from escaping, or that freedom will destroy her city, the empire and everything she holds dear.

POLITICS ARE HELL. Kaylin wasn't sent to the West March to start a war. Her mission to bring back nine Barrani might do just that, though. She traveled with a Dragon, and her presence is perceived as an act of aggression in the extremely hostile world of Barrani-Dragon politics. Internal Barrani politics are no less deadly, and Kaylin has managed barely to help the rescued Barrani evade both death and captivity at the hands of the Consort. Before the unplanned visit to the West March, Kaylin invited the Consort to dinner. For obvious reasons, Kaylin wants to cancel dinner forever. But the Consort is going to show up at the front door at the agreed-upon time. The fact that she tried to imprison Kaylin's guests doesn't matter at all to her. A private Barrani Hell, built of Shadow and malice, exists beneath the High Halls. It is the High Court's duty to jail the creature at its heart even if it means that Barrani victims are locked in the cage with it. The Consort is willing to do almost anything to free the trapped and end their eternal torment. And she needs the help of Kaylin's houseguests and Kaylin herself. Failure won't be death it will be Hell. And that's where Kaylin is going.

SOMETHING IS WAKING The fiefs that exist at the heart of the city of Elantra are home to sentient Towers that guard the world against the incursion of Shadow. But between the fiefs exists the gray world of the border zone. In it, geography changes between one passage across a border and the next. The rules of magic are different there-and yet somehow familiar to Kaylin Neya. When a Shadow escapes, Kaylin must find out how...and why. If Shadows can breach the barrier erected by the Towers, the whole of Elantra will be devoured. It's happened on other worlds. Bellusdeo, Kaylin's Dragon companion, absolutely believes it can happen on theirs. The border zone holds secrets and ancient histories, and people are gathering there in search of its power. Without even understanding what that power is, or why it exists, Kaylin is in a desperate race against time to find those secrets first. She doesn't know who her enemies are. She doesn't know how many she'll face. But she won't face them alone.

KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE, AND YOUR ENEMIES CLOSER A Dragon and ten Barrani wouldn't be anyone's ideal roommates if a person wants peace and tranquility at home. The residue of three Draco-Barrani wars can make things pretty awkward-on a good day. Kaylin Neya has run out of good days. In the upheaval surrounding the Academia, the Tower in the fief of Candallar is now without its lord. The Towers were created to protect Elantra against Shadow. Dragon Bellusdeo wants to captain the Tower and continue a war she'll never be able to abandon. But Sedarias, leader of the Barrani cohort, wants the Tower for the cohort. And Barrani and Dragons don't negotiate, even when they're living under the same roof. If there were ever a time for Shadow to strike, it's now, when alliances are fractured and the Tower is vulnerable for the first time in centuries. More than ever, Kaylin needs her friends to work together if they're going to be able to stop the threat to Elantra.

Dead men tell no tales When Corporal Kaylin Neya is assigned front desk duty-a task hated by every Hawk-the only thing she can look forward to besides an endless stream of complaints is visits from a dotty old woman, because she always brings baked goods along with information passed on by her friends, who happen to be ghosts no one else can see. But then the old woman's invisible friends have news about Severn Handred: his unusual weapon has caught their attention. Concerned, Kaylin accompanies the woman home because she has a few questions to ask these so-called ghosts. Sadly, Kaylin can also see them. And she can see other spirits in the woman's house as well-four children who've been trapped there for decades. When Kaylin looks into the deaths in the records at the Halls of Law, something doesn't add up. Factor in a building that isn't supposed to exist, and nothing makes sense. But Kaylin is a Hawk, and she's determined to free the trapped ghosts of the children, even if she's suddenly landed in the middle of the bad kind of Barrani history. Someone doesn't want the past to be uncovered, and they're perfectly willing to destroy Kaylin if it preserves the secrets of the dead...

The Academia, once an elite proving ground for the rulers of the world, has been frozen for centuries. Now its strange slumber has ended, and a new Chancellor, an orange-eyed dragon, has reopened its lecture halls and readied its dorms. In order to thrive once more, however, the Academia needs fresh blood-new students with a passion and talent for learning. One such student, Robin, has the perfect recruit in mind: his friend Raven, an orphan who lives in the dangerous Warrens. Robin grew up in the Warrens, and he wouldn't have made it if not for Raven. He knows she'll be safe at the Academia, where her unusual gifts can be appreciated. But when students start turning up dead, the campus threatens to collapse completely. Raven and Robin will not let that happen to their new home...if they can survive long enough to figure out who-or what-is trying to kill them.

In the City of Elantra, only one holds the key to peace—or eternal darkness. At the end of three long wars, Bellusdeo is the last of her kind, the sole surviving female Dragon in the City of Elantra. When she appears one evening on the doorstep of her former roommate, Corporal Kaylin Neya, her demeanor is dreadful—more so than what's expected of the Dragons' notoriously tempestuous temperament. Kaylin's new roommate, Mrs. Erickson, is quick to see the reason for Bellusdeo's despair—the eight ghosts of the Dragon's dead sisters, chained to her and unseen. Pleading for release, revenge and, above all, peace. Now Kaylin and Mrs. Erickson must embark on a perilous journey, from the hallowed halls of the Academia to the depths of forbidden magic, to confront the very essence of mortality itself. Can Kaylin help release the untapped power within Mrs. Erickson to save Bellusdeo's sisters...or will unlocking the past plunge the realm into an unfathomable darkness forever?