Circle Reforged

About the Circle Reforged series

Circle Reforged brings Pierce's original four Circle of Magic mages back together as adults, opening with The Will of the Empress, in which Sandry, Tris, Daja, and Briar reunite for the first time in years for a voyage to Namorn -- Daja's ancestral homeland, ruled by Sandry's aunt, the Empress Berenene -- only to find their years apart have strained the magical thread-bond that once made them near-inseparable, even as the Empress works to keep Sandry permanently at court through marriage and politics. Melting Stones follows a different member of the extended Circle family: Evvy, the young stone-mage Briar took on as a student in The Circle Opens, sent to a volcanic island to investigate stones that are inexplicably dying, in a quieter, more solitary story than the other two books. Battle Magic, published last but set two years earlier in the internal timeline, sends Briar, Rosethorn, and Evvy into the mountain kingdom of Gyongxe as the imperial army of neighboring Yanjing prepares an invasion, forcing the three mages into the middle of a full-scale war they can't simply out-magic their way past. Together the trilogy widens Emelan's geography and politics well beyond Winding Circle and the earlier quartets' more contained crises, testing what the original four mages' bond means once distance, new students, and larger-scale conflicts complicate it.