Eighteen-year-old Aris Flamekeeper seeks revenge against a magician who has stricken him with a fatal curse. But when he meets a young woman who suffers from the same affliction, he learns it might be possible to survive—at a terrible cost. More

Central to Sorrow is the conflict between Aris’ temptation to hope for salvation and his refusal to do so. He learns that being hopeless does not necessarily make one useless, and seeks an answer to the question: “What action will you show yourself capable of in the face of despair?” Less

Aris embarks on a dark descent through the late stages of the fatal Shadour Curse. As he abandons hope, the Swords of Ruin feed on his anguish, elevating him with the power to challenge the evils plaguing the Fallen Kingdom. But Aris must decide how far he is willing to follow the weapons—or he may become worse than what he is trying to destroy. More

Aris carries the sword Sorrow, one of the legendary Swords of Ruin, and seeks its mate, Despair, to achieve his goals of vengeance and salvation. But Despair is held by Lyren Morningstar, the queen of the Fallen Kingdom, and she has no intention of surrendering it anytime soon. Aris and Lyren share the ambition of overthrowing the dangerous Lord Ravenfire, but they must work through their personal friction to succeed.

Aris and Lyren themselves are “swords of ruin,” manipulated by Lord Ravenfire for his own purpose, a purpose they seek to defy. This series is thus the story of Aris and Lyren, which becomes most obvious in Despair as they are transformed from rivals into partners. Less

Aris thinks he understands who he is—a solitary creature, an outsider—but this belief is challenged as he and the enigmatic Lyren Morningstar bond in their mutual exile from mainstream society. Aris and Lyren must stop a magician who seeks to use a rift in reality to resurrect his lost love from one of infinite alternate worlds, but Aris discovers he too has reasons to join worlds together and may pursuing the same thing as their enemy. More

The Swords of Ruin stories explore the nature of identity from an existential perspective, considering what it means to “exist in the world,” and seeking to answer the question: “To what degree is one’s identity defined by one’s surroundings?” Both Aris and Lyren have been asking themselves the question of “Who am I, really?” throughout this series, and through the development of their relationship in Mirrors of Misery, they each find a unique answer. Less

Aris finds new purpose—and understanding of a troubling destiny—fighting to save the prosperous kingdom of Magnoria from a resurrected witch queen, but the kingdom’s strong-willed princess threatens to lead him astray.

Aris and Lyren must unite several kingdoms in order to resist the onslaught of a mad magician who seeks to break reality, but it is their own relationship that might most imperil the world.

In the conclusion to the Ravenfire saga, Aris and Lyren use the crystallized hearts of fallen goddesses to contest the magician Ravenfire, who is now closer than ever to his goal of shattering all reality—in order to prevail, love will have to prove greater than hate, and Aris and Lyren must come to terms with their devastating destiny.