Terciel & Elinor

Terciel is eighteen and an orphan in the Old Kingdom, a land of ancient and often dangerous magics. His great-aunt Tizanael is the Abhorsen, and she is training him as the Abhorsen-in-Waiting. He learns necromancy, but to lay the Dead to rest, not to raise them. The Abhorsens exist to keep the Dead from returning to Life.

Beyond the Wall lies Ancelstierre, a country of steam engines where magic seldom works. There nineteen-year-old Elinor lives a secluded life. Her only companions are an old governess and an even older groom who once performed in a circus. Her mother rules the household as a tyrant, feared by everyone even as sickness brings her close to death.

Elinor has no idea that she is tied to the Old Kingdom, or that magic can slip across the Wall. That changes when an ancient enemy of the Abhorsens sets a plot in motion that draws Terciel and Tizanael into Ancelstierre.

One day of fire, death and loss sends Elinor onto a path that leads over the Wall and into Terciel's life. This prequel to the Old Kingdom series tells the love story of Sabriel's parents. It pairs the charter magic that links them with the danger it brings, as the Dead refuse to stay buried.