Her Rising Flame

Book 2: Her Hidden Fire

by Cliodhna O'Sullivan

Genres: Young Adult; YA Fantasy; YA Epic Fantasy; YA Wizards & Witches

Synopsis

This searing romantasy and heart-stopping follow-up to Her Hidden Fire finds Éadha a desperate fugitive, hopelessly torn between fear and defiance, human and dragon . . . and Ionáin and Gry. Each impossible choice will take her further down a path from which she may never return.

The first print edition hardcover features a gorgeous rose-gold foil jacket, designed edges, and a full map of Éadha's world, available while supplies last.

Éadha is on the run, having narrowly escaped the cruel grip of the Master Channellers. Relentlessly hunted, she is pushed to the very edge of her world—a place of ancient magic and long-held secrets where she must create a new life for herself in ways she never imagined.

Ionáin is forced to come to terms with the fact that he has no power, nor did he ever. Imprisoned deep in the Fodder holds, he faces the stark reality of what it means to be an enemy of the Masters as he tries to make sense of his future . . . with or without Éadha.

Gry finds himself walking a dangerous line between protecting his Family’s secret legacy and being true to his feelings for Éadha. With his newly revealed powers, he must train with the Masters he despises and find some way to destroy the very system that makes him elite—before that system can destroy Éadha.

Told from three perspectives, Her Rising Flame is a whirlwind sequel of world-shattering secrets, wrenching heartache, and the terrible consequences of power.

Release date: November 3, 2026

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 432

Sample

“Éadha, RUN!”
For a frozen instant, Éadha stared at Ionáin, her eyes wide with shock and pain. Then she turned and sprinted away from where Ionáin was standing by the fountain in front of the Hall of Illusions.
Within seconds she’d crossed the courtyard and disappeared through the stone arch into the cloister beyond, though Ionáin could still hear the sound of her feet on the flagstones. He could even picture her as she ran: sprinting in that determined way of hers, head down and completely focused. Her hair had come loose in the fight with Master Dathin, and it’d be flying out behind her now—the long, dark curls so much like when she was younger and wouldn’t cut her hair all winter because she said it kept her warm when out herding. How many times had he raced her like that when they were little, the two of them at full tilt across the dips and hollows in the forest behind Ailm’s Keep? The difference now, though, was in how impossibly fast her footsteps sounded. Proof, if he still needed it, of her power. The gift she’d been hiding from him all along.
Then even that sound disappeared. All that remained was the quiet plashing of the fountain. Deep inside Ionáin there was a sense of something winking out—a link between the two of them breaking. A link he’d always thought was love but turned out to have been power.
Hers.
Directly in front of him stood the massive iron-bound doors of the Hall of Illusions. Master Dathin was still inside. After a single furious roar when he realized he’d been fighting an illusion of Éadha instead of the real thing, he’d gone silent. No doubt he was drawing fresh power. He’d burst through those doors any second now.
Ionáin’s mind was working furiously, trying to make sense of all that’d happened in the last few moments. The brutal fight between Éadha and Dathin; the Master’s absolute determination to destroy her, leaving her no choice but to run. As the echoes of Éadha’s footsteps died, Ionáin automatically focused his senses to follow her thread, willing her to get as far away as possible before Dathin appeared. But when he did, he felt nothing. It was as if someone had dropped a hood over his head. He knew the touch of Éadha’s thread as well as he knew his own hands; there hadn’t been a day this last year on Lambay when he hadn’t reached out for its silvery reassurance. Now though, there was nothing: not Éadha’s thread, not the shimmer of apprentices’ threads as they hurried through the cloisters on their way to class. Not even the massive presence of Master Dathin behind the hall doors or the threads surely stretching from the Master right now as he drew power. Ionáin knew these threads were all around him, a translucent network of life and power, but he couldn’t feel them anymore. He was cut off. Senseless. Blind.
With growing horror, Ionáin reached inside himself. Just for an instant he felt a flicker of the power he’d drawn yesterday for a dragon illusion, but he’d used the last of it to create the illusion that let Éadha escape. Now all he had left was a guttering candle burned down almost to nothing. As he reached for it, it blinked out of existence.
Éadha’s words from a few minutes ago played over in his mind.
My power. My gift. Not yours.
And while Ionáin registered the absolute emptiness inside him, he understood what she meant—not just that she was gifted but that he really wasn’t. His body went cold as the realizations began to multiply. He should’ve failed his Reckoning last spring. He did fail it, but Éadha had somehow covered it up. All the joy and relief he’d felt this last year that he was finally safe and could protect his Family and Ailm’s Keep had all been based on a lie. And now Master Dathin knew.
He started to turn, ready to run. He needed to get out of here before Master Dathin appeared. But in the same second he thought, My parents.
If he ran now, what would happen to them? Ionáin forced himself to think it through, even though every muscle in his body was tensed and screaming for him to flee. He was powerless. He’d been prepared for that possibility before his Reckoning, even if he’d spent this last year thinking that danger had passed. Éadha had begged him to run on the morning of his Reckoning, he remembered. Had she known then he wasn’t gifted? When had her lies started?
Think, he told himself again. Don’t get distracted.
Before his Reckoning he’d told Éadha he couldn’t run from failure. He had a Family, people who needed him to stay within the system or they’d be punished. From within the Hall of Illusions he heard movement. He straightened, breathing in hard and forcing his features into a calm, controlled expression. After all, he’d done nothing wrong. He’d get through this, protect his Family.
He still wasn’t someone who got to run.
The hall doors slammed open, and Master Dathin appeared.
He was almost unrecognizable, his face distorted by fury, his body swollen with fresh power. Realizing Éadha was gone, he let out a furious bellow before he caught sight of Ionáin.
“You,” he snarled, all his thwarted rage focusing on the young man standing in front of him.
Ionáin stepped forward, his hands raised and his mouth open to explain, but it was too late. He had always been too late. Master Dathin was already lifting his staff and firing a bolt of pure energy straight at him. As the Master’s shot hurtled toward him, Ionáin instinctively shaped his hands to create a shield and deflect it, just as he’d been trained. Because it seemed he still hadn’t accepted, not really, not in his bones, that there was nothing there anymore. Not one drop of power left inside him, so the space between his hands stayed empty and Dathin’s shot scorched straight through, smashing into his undefended forehead.
The blow knocked Ionáin backward, sending his head slamming into the marble lip of the fountain behind him. The last thing he felt was icy water as he slumped into the basin and out of consciousness.