THE TETHERED MAGE

A spellbinding fantasy debut from Melissa Caruso, set in a world where people born with magic are mortally bound to and controlled by non-magical people.

In the Raverran Empire, magic is scarce and those born with power are strictly controlled -- taken as children and conscripted into the Falcon Army. Zaira has lived her life on the streets to avoid this fate, hiding her mage-mark and thieving to survive. But hers is a rare and dangerous magic, one that threatens the entire empire.

Lady Amalia Cornaro was never meant to be a Falconer. Heiress and scholar, she was born into a treacherous world of political machinations.
But fate has bound the heir and the mage. And as war looms on the horizon, a single spark could turn their city into a pyre.

Amalia Cornaro is an heiress, who’s being groomed to take her mother’s place on the Council of the Nine. But Amalia has no interest in her mother’s—La Contessa’s—Machiavellian machinations, preferring instead to spend all her time with her nose in a book (a kindred spirit!). Amalia is returning home after procuring a rare volume when she witnesses two men attacking a young girl. She moves to intervene, but the girl seems perfectly capable of defending herself—within seconds the attackers are burned to a crisp. As the fire threatens to engulf surrounding areas, it becomes apparent that, if unchecked, the mage’s wrath will consume the entire city, and Amalia has no choice but to step in.

She throws jesses around Zaira’s wrist, extinguishing the fire and unwittingly binding them for life. Patrician families, like the Cornaros, are prohibited from becoming Falconers, but, now that Amalia is one, La Contessa sees it as an opportunity to gain a political edge. Amalia is thrust into the world of court intrigue, realizing that peace is more precarious than she had thought.

Melissa Caruso graduated with honors in Creative Writing from Brown University and holds an MFA in Fiction from University of Massachusetts - Amherst.