Guardians of Dawn: Ami
Li Ami has always been outside — outside her family, outside friendship, outside ordinary magic. The eccentric daughter of a former imperial magician, exiled to the far west of the Morning Realms, she has given her life to books because books are easier to read than people, and she is the sole caretaker of a father whose ravings may be less madness than prophecy.
When her father is arrested for stealing a branch from a monastery's sacred tree, Ami offers herself in his place to the Beast who holds the castle — a creature who needs someone able to translate a forbidden magical text and find a cure for the blight killing the land's harvest.
Meanwhile Jin Zhara, who defeated a demon lord and learned she is the Guardian of Fire, is discovering how badly outmatched she is. Against the Mother of Ten Thousand Demons she will need the other Guardians, and she will need them soon. Together they must reach the Root of the World and seal the demon portal that may have opened there.
Guardians of Dawn: Ami is the second book in the series — a Beauty and the Beast retelling set inside a widening war between order and chaos.
A bookish outsider and daughter of a former imperial magician, who gives herself to the Beast to free her father; the Guardian of Wood.
The Guardian of Fire, searching for the other Guardians before the Mother of Ten Thousand Demons can move.
The demonic power the Guardians must ultimately face.
The masked figure holding the castle, who needs a forbidden text translated.