Rachaelis is an Initiate of the Conclave, a powerful order of mages in the city of Araspan. After surviving the terrifying Testing — a rite of passage that kills or breaks most who undergo it — she finds herself hunted: first by assassins, then by a blood shaman who wants her body as a vessel for a high demon. The series is a tightly plotted sword-and-sorcery adventure set in a city bristling with corruption and competing magical factions.

Rachaelis begins as earnest and principled — a student who simply wants to survive — and grows into a mage willing to make terrible sacrifices to protect the innocent. Raelum, introduced in the latter half, is a man haunted by his own demonic heritage, whose struggle to remain honorable despite his nature gives the series its deepest emotional core.

The first four books follow Rachaelis through escalating supernatural threats within Araspan. The final four shift perspective to Raelum, a demonborn Paladin of the Silver Order pursuing a renegade Adept to the edge of the world. Together the two arcs explore what it means to fight evil when the darkness is also part of yourself.