Sands

Lhaurel is seventeen and lives among the clans of the Sharani desert. Her people have always been able to predict when the genesauri migrate: giant flying serpents that hunt the sands in packs. This season the prediction fails, and the creatures strike her clan without warning.

Lhaurel takes up a sword to protect her people. No woman of any clan is permitted to do so, and the punishment is death. She is chained to a rock and left for the next wave of genesauri to find.

She is saved by a clan that few have seen and fewer understand. Rumor holds that its members can curse a child with a glance and disappear into the sands without leaving a trace. Among them, Lhaurel learns she has a rare power of her own, one she cannot control.

The survival of the clans is uncertain, and another genesauri attack is coming. It is a desert fantasy that opens fast, with a young heroine under a death sentence and monsters circling. It is the first book in the Sharani series.