Cirrus@Austlit

'Fire, smoke, and ash consume the continent in the darkest chapter yet in The Call of the Rift series

'The Battle of Tjarnnaast left its mark: Katja is adrift, haunted by her memories of the battle and dark visions of a desolate wasteland. Her only guidance is her parents’ cryptic messages from the spirit world. On their instructions, Katja goes south to track down her mercenary friend Tiernan. Maybe together, they can find the Rúonbattai’s elusive cleric leader, defeat their ranks forever, and end the war. Then Katja could finally go home — if she can decide where home is.

'Yet Tiernan is missing, and Katja’s best hope of rescuing him is by striking unlikely alliances — with untrustworthy acquaintances and new allies hiding dangerous secrets. Druids whisper of dry winters and warming oceans and the war-torn nation is a tinderbox ready to ignite. Katja must use everything in her power, from her water magic to her hand in marriage, to battle the growing flames. If they erupt into a wildfire, everyone and everything she loves will burn with them.' (Publication summary)

'Step through the portal into a world ravaged by chaotic spirits and corrupted magic in the third book of The Call of the Rift high fantasy series.

'Kateiko Rin lives a quiet life with her parents and her people in the coastal rainforest. Everything changes when her estranged uncle washes up on their shores, harried and half-dead, trailed by two blue-eyed children no one knew existed. To protect her family, Kateiko secrets away her young cousins. Caring for them includes hiding their ties to the Rúonbattai, a warlike cult trying to claim the land for themselves along with as many lives as they can. With the immigrant mage Tiernan and his companions Jorumgard and Nerio, Kateiko enters into the fray, facing strange, dangerous magic that unwinds the fabric of time. She must end the war before it tears the land, and her family, apart.

'In the third book in The Call of the Rift series, Jae Waller invites us into another dimension and introduces an alternate version of her captivating heroine in a world full of familiar and unknown faces, including many we thought long dead.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'The Blackbird Battle has left all sides devastated. The wind spirit Suriel has disappeared. A hard winter is coming, and famine stalks the land. Kateiko Rin returns to her people, ready at last to reintegrate into her community, but the dangers of the unsettled times come raging to her doorstep and Kateiko is left with no choice but to battle the forces that seek to open a rift between the worlds. Leading an unlikely alliance that includes her new love, Airedain, and her old one, Tiernan, Kateiko must risk all to stop the coming disaster.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Seventeen-year-old Kateiko doesn't want to be Rin anymore - not if it means sacrificing lives to protect the dead. Her only way out is to join another tribe, a one-way trek through the coastal rainforest. Killing a colonial soldier in the woods isn't part of the plan. Neither is spending the winter with Tiernan, an immigrant who keeps a sword with his carpentry tools. His log cabin leaks and his stories about other worlds raise more questions than they answer.

'Then the air spirit Suriel, long thought dormant, resurrects a war. For Kateiko, protecting other tribes in her confederacy is atonement. For Tiernan, war is a return to the military life he's desperate to forget.

'Leaving Tiernan means losing the one man Kateiko trusts. Staying with him means abandoning colonists to a death sentence. In a region tainted by prejudice and on the brink of civil war, she has to decide what's worth dying - or killing - for.'

Source: Publisher's world.