The Elementalist

Fourteen-year-old AJ Bruxe has no awakened Gate, no powerful family, no formal training, and no reason to believe the world’s elite warriors will ever take him seriously. Then something falls from the sky above Silvercrest. The falling man is Ira Sole, a legendary warrior whose powers have been sealed—and whose arrival draws the attention of enemies strong enough to threaten entire empires. In the chaos, a forbidden artifact known as the Ember Scripture falls into AJ’s possession. By accident. It should not respond to him. It does. Soon AJ is surviving what should kill him, learning movements no one taught him, and showing signs of power that refuse to follow the rules everyone else understands. Even Ira cannot properly read what lies inside him. The only clue may be the strange pendant AJ’s grandmother has forced him to wear since childhood—and the secrets she refuses to explain. Now AJ has entered the Ascendant Trials, a brutal competition where gifted young warriors fight for status, opportunity, and a chance to rise. His rivals have years of training, powerful Houses, rare techniques, and influential Masters. AJ has bruises, nerve, a dangerous book hidden in his satchel, and a new Master who already knows he is hiding something. But the Trials are only the beginning. Powerful factions are hunting the Ember Scripture. A masked enemy is following traces of a buried past. AJ’s grandmother knows far more than she admits. And the deeper AJ pushes into his own power, the more dangerous one question becomes: What exactly is AJ Bruxe—and why were so many people afraid of what would happen when he finally awakened?

Less