The Enduring Flame Trilogy

About The Enduring Flame Trilogy

Set roughly a thousand years after the events of The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy, this second trilogy in Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory's Obsidian Universe follows a new cast confronting the same world's oldest enemy in a new form. The Phoenix Unchained introduces Harrier and Tiercel, an ordinary young man and his more scholarly best friend who discover that Tiercel has real, unlicensed magical talent in a world where all Wildmage abilities were believed to have died out generations earlier — a discovery that puts them in the path of powers neither of them understands. The Phoenix Endangered and The Phoenix Transformed send the pair (and the companions they gather along the way) into a war against a resurgent evil the earlier trilogy's heroes had believed permanently defeated, forcing an entirely new generation to relearn magic and courage under pressure.

Because it's set so long after the Obsidian Mountain Trilogy, this trilogy works as an entry point into the setting on its own — familiarity with Kellen and Idalia's story isn't required, though longtime readers will recognize how the earlier conflict's consequences have rippled forward into this new era.

How to read this series

Publication order is the correct order within this trilogy. Read The Phoenix Unchained (2007), The Phoenix Endangered (2008), and The Phoenix Transformed (2009) in sequence, since Harrier and Tiercel's story runs continuously across all three. You do not need to have read The Obsidian Mountain Trilogy first — this trilogy is set roughly a thousand years later with an entirely new cast and functions as a standalone entry point into the Obsidian Universe.