The World of Underrealm - La série

Loren dreams of escaping her cruel parents and becoming a great thief: Nightblade, a warrior of darkness and a champion of the light. Following the fugitive sorcerer Xain out of her forest home, she wears a stolen noble's cloak of fine black cloth and carries a dagger the world has not seen in centuries—a blade that can turn enemies to allies when she least expects it. Yet something keeps her from using that dagger to take a life. Soon she crosses paths with the smuggler family of Yerrin, invoking their wrath by stealing their most precious treasure. Yerrin’s reach is long, and they will not stop until they silence Loren forever. If she can survive, Loren may become the most infamous thief in the world. But if she fails, she will be only the first to burn in a war that threatens all the nine lands.

Loren is on her way to becoming the woman of her dreams: Nightblade, a warrior of the darkness and a champion of the light. But powerful enemies hunt her across the kingdom while she searches in vain for her lost friends. At her side is Jordel, a Mystic who seems to know more about Loren than she would wish—and something about her powerful dagger. But Loren has much to learn about Jordel’s order, and not all of it is good. Loren wishes only to find her friends and evade the King's law. But she will have to decide whether to flee Underrealm's problems, or stand and fight them—and on that decision may rest the fate of all who dwell in the nine lands.

Xain's madness has branded Loren and her friends, and even Jordel, fugitives from not only the King's law but the order of Mystics. Their only hope lies in a hidden stronghold far to the north of the kingdom of Selvan. With their steps hounded, they must take a dangerous route through the Greatrock Mountains to the west. But more than Mystics and constables will pursue them, as dark creatures stalk them from the shadows of high peaks, and the presence of a mysterious foe known only as "The Lord" looms over them. And in the darkness of his shadow, one traveler's journey will end forever.

Loren is listless in the wind. Though the Shades have been revealed, the cost of that knowledge seems too heavy to bear. And once again Xain is clutched by the tremors of magestone sickness, giving her the excuse she needs to simply...not go on. But now that the Shades have been found, they will not let Loren rest. If the Mystics learn what she knows, all the Shades' dark schemes could be thrown into disarray. Northwood will be the first town to burn under their icy fury, but as they hunt for Loren on the road to Feldemar, it will not be the last.

At the age of six, Ebon Drayden discovered he was an alchemist—a wizard who can transform matter with a simple touch. But his father forbade him to use his magic, and kept him from attending the Academy where he could learn to use it. Just before his seventeenth birthday, Ebon’s aunt intervenes on his behalf and enrolls him in the Academy. Now at last he has the chance to use the magic he has so desperately yearned to control—yet the learning comes hard, for he has wasted more than half his life squandering his gift. To make matters worse, the darkness of his family name plagues him. The other students are terrified. Teachers regard him with suspicion. And before long, his family begins to draw him into their schemes that span all the nine kingdoms of Underrealm. A dark plot is brewing upon the High King’s Seat, and slowly Ebon finds himself being drawn into it. If he is to learn to become an alchemist—indeed, if he is to survive at all—he must cast off his family’s black legacy, and become the wizard he was always meant to be.