Summary of Of Wrath and Storms

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Prologue: An assassin saves a nobleman’s daughter from a human trafficking ring in Gendris, then reveals her next job is to spy on – and possibly assassinate – the Lord and Lady of Hiraeth (aka Bressen and Cyra).

Two months after Jerram and Glenora’s attempted coup, Cyra and Bressen prepare for their wedding, but Thasia remains unstable. Polaris has a ‘temporary’ High Council in power, and that council is dragging their feet on choosing a new ruler who will represent them in the Triumvirate. Thankfully, Derridan has just completed a set of trials to find their new lord, and Aidan arrives in Callanus with his husband Jasper and personal guard Maziren to take his Triumvirate seat. 

Unrest remains. Sandrian has escaped from Revenmyer, and bands of brigands from Rowe attack small towns throughout Thasia. Cyra’s status as a syphon is generally known, but she continues to struggle with her powers, both mentally and physically. Bressen calls in a favor to have a merman friend, Axenus, train Cyra in the use of her powers.

Phaedrus arrives at the Citadel to talk to Bressen and Cyra. He’s been translating an old religious text that Bressen helped him get access to, and he finds a section that says the syphons may all be women and that there are always three who serve as the Hands of the Gods.

Just as Cyra begins to make progress in her magic training, she receives word that the people of Fernweh have burned her family’s vineyard, and she leaves to see what happened. Overwhelmed by the loss of the vineyard, Cyra seeks out the offenders, which includes Eddin, a former lover. Cyra burns Eddin’s tavern and tries to make him and two other men walk into the fire before Bressen arrives. In order to stop her, Bressen is forced to break into her mind.

Cyra wakes a few days later and must deal with the fact that she tried to kill in revenge, although her position of privilege has shielded her from any major repercussions. Or at least any major criminal repercussions. Her brother Brix blames her for the loss of the vineyard, and her mind and body seem to be rejecting Bressen. 

Adrift from Bressen and dealing with her own guilt, Cyra seeks comfort in Samhail’s friendship when he returns from Derridan. In an attempt to help Cyra, Bressen allows her to bring Samhail to their bed again, although they decide that this should be the last time.

Bressen, Cyra, Samhail, and Axenus all move back to Tide’s End in Solandis a week or so before the wedding. Cyra meets Bressen’s mother, who isn’t happy Bressen has chosen a non-angelus partner. Then Days before the wedding, Cyra meets her aunt, who now wants to be part of her life. Cyra sends her away, having not forgiven her for her part in Aramis’s imprisonment. 

Raina takes Cyra out the night before her wedding for some ‘drinking, gambling, and fighting’ but the den where they go is attacked by blue creatures whose skin is like armor and who can turn others into them if the person is injured. Cyra calls Bressen, and he and Samhail arrive to neutralize the threat. Cyra’s aunt – who was there – also saves her life, and Cyra invites her to the wedding.

The day of the wedding, Cyra agrees to talk to Bressen’s mother alone, but the woman attacks her. Cyra fights her off, and when Bressen arrives, he sends his mother to the holding cells below the house. Cyra is shaken, though. 

Besieged by doubts and roiling emotions, she flees to the Priory an hour before her wedding. There she sees Phaedrus, who tells her the story of the origin of love and helps her realize she and Bressen were meant to be together. Cyra returns just in time for her wedding with Phaedrus in tow to perform the ceremony.

Bressen and Cyra exchange vows in a small ceremony before friends, but Cyra is rocked by a vision just after they kiss. Bressen and others bring Cyra back up to the house to learn what she saw. Cyra recounts seeing a series of magical items belonging to the last known syphon, Praya, that must be retrieved from a shipwreck at the bottom of the sea. She reports that Morland is still alive, and the items are related to him and Sandrian. There is one final part of the vision she can’t seem to recall.

Cyra begins training to go down into the water with Axenus to find the magical objects, a set of rings and a collar necklace. Bressen isn’t happy that Cyra will be going, but he doesn’t stop her. When Cyra is ready, they set sail for the last-known location of The Stalwart, the ship that supposedly carried Praya to her death centuries ago. Cyra and Axenus dive down to the ship and find the rings and collar, but before they can make it back up, Axenus is pulled back down by a kraken. Cyra returns to save him, but they can’t escape, and Cyra begins to lose power.

Back on the ship, Bressen feels Cyra giving up and sends her his power. She’s able to kill the kraken by turning it to water, and she and Axenus return to the surface. 

In examining the objects later on, they find that the rings can transfer items between them, and the collar may still contain the three warriors who were sent to kill Praya.

That night a storm hits, and their ship is blown off course. Cyra and Axenus keep the ship together, but they need to wait for repairs the next morning before they can return home. They’re near an island, but they decide that they don’t have time to explore it, even though Cyra finds something odd about it.

When they return, Phaedrus has updates from his translations. Cyra is not only a Hand of the Gods, she serves the Nemesis. Cyra has some trouble adjusting to this news, so Bressen brings her to the Priory. They have sex on the altar, but Cyra gets a sudden surge of power and needs to vent some. They return to Tide’s End, and Cyra creates a storm and an earthquake before Bressen calms her.

That night, Cyra dream walks into Axenus’s nightmare and discovers he was kept as a sex slave by Queen Clarice of Sedonia. The next day, Cyra’s meeting with Axenus is awkward, but she learns to shapeshift for the first time. Axenus ends up telling Cyra part of his story, then she meets Samhail for their combat training. She tries to attack him and is quickly defeated. Cyra jokes about training with Samhail the way he trains with Bressen, by training to break down his mind shield, and he agrees. Cyra quickly learns she’s not as good as she thinks she is.

Later that night, Cyra shows off her new shapeshifting skills to Bressen in bed, but they’re soon interrupted by Ferris, who has news of Aidan’s arrival. They learn Jasper has been taken by Sandrian, and Aidan begs for help getting him back. Cyra remembers the last part of her vision, which shows her what she believes is Bressen’s death. Cyra refuses to let Bressen go help Jasper, and she negates his power to hold his mind. Aidan pleads with her to help him, and he touches her, which allows her to syphon his power that he’s been withholding from her.

Cyra, Bressen, Samhail, Axenus, Aidan, and Maziren all go to the temple to meet Sandrian so they can get Jasper back. They bring Aramis to wait outside in case they need his healing skills. Inside the temple, Sandrian has Jasper suspended over a chasm, and he forces the group of rescuers to put on caronium cuffs. The cuff doesn’t work on Cyra, and she tries to figure out what to do.

Samhail is injured by Morland, and Sandrian tells Cyra that she must use the rings they found on the ship to transfer Morland’s mind out of a mortal body and into Bressen’s. Cyra balks and tries to fight back, but a woman Cyra recognizes from Axenus’s nightmare – Magdalene – emerges and stops her. Cyra agrees to do the transfer of minds, but secretly she plans to use her mind powers to kill Morland.

Before Cyra can kill Morland, Aramis arrives to stab one of the blue creatures – called symbionts – and all hells break loose. Aramis heals Samhail, who transforms into a gargoyle and begins to fight. Cyra breaks Bressen and Maziren’s caronium cuffs so they can fight too.

Bressen calls the wrath of demoni, but he’s struck by Sandrian’s lightning, and Cyra believes her vision has come true and that he’s dead. She unhinges and fills the temple with lightning that she syphoned when she touched Sandrian. When she touches Bressen, though, she jumpstarts his heart again, and he revives.

Sandrian and Magdalene have fled, and Morland appears to have been killed by Cyra’s lightning. They discover that Aramis is dead as well, though, seemingly killed by Magdalene’s ice. Cyra grieves for the father she only just found. 

As they get ready to leave, they discover that the collar they retrieved from the ship was broken, and the three warriors trapped inside it by Praya have been released. The warriors accompany them back to the Citadel where they tell their story. They weren’t sent to kill Praya but to capture her for Magdalene.

When everyone else leaves, Cyra tells Bressen, Samhail, and Axenus that she saw part of the vision Magdalene told them she’d had. Cyra reports seeing an army of symbionts.

They have a funeral for Aramis the next day and Cyra uses a trick she learned from Aidan to turn his body to paper butterflies. She keeps one. She’s angry and vows revenge on Magdalene. Bressen brings her down to the holding cells below Tide’s End and shows her that Eddin has been there since the wedding. Cyra nearly kills him but stops when Aramis’s healing power flares in her. Cyra reveals to Bressen that her eyes can flash red like his do.

They go back up to the house where they meet Samhail and Axenus and begin planning for war. 

Epilogue I: Back in Derridan, it's revealed that Morland has once again evaded death by jumping minds into Aidan's body. He's taken over Aidan and is now living with Jasper in the palace at Seatherny, unbeknownst to anyone else.

Epilogue II: It’s revealed that Bressen and Cyra did land on the island after the storm, but their memories of the trip were wiped away by Praya, who is still alive and living there with her wife Ariel.