History Literature / TheEmpiriumTrilogy

* LaResistance: Red Crown is a rebel group whose main goal is fighting back and eventually taking down the Undying Empire. It originally started as push back against Merovec for taking the Celdarian throne while King Audric was still alive.

''The Empirium Trilogy'' is a series of [[YoungAdultLiterature young adult]] [[HighFantasy fantasy]] novels written by Claire Legrand.

* DifferentlyPoweredIndividual: Humans who have can manipulate one of the seven elements are called "elementals".

* ExtraOreDinary: Metalmasters are people who can manipulate metal. %%stopped here

* FaceMonsterTurn: [[spoiler:Rozen]] was a genuinely good parent who only wanted to keep her children safe from the Undying Empire. After being kidnapped by Fidelia, the cult's scientists experimented on her, turning her into a crawler, a not-quite-human beast. She manages to retain a bit of her humanity at the last minute when she asks Eliana to kill her.
* FantasticRacism: Angels hate humans because of their short lifespan and less robust bodies. Humans fear and hate angels because they hunted them down. Both species despise marques because of their half-breed nature and powers over space and time. In Kirvaya, there's also a contingent of elementals who force the nonpowered population into slavery.
* FantasyContraception: Maidsright herbs are a type of medicinal plant that acts as a form of birth control. Ludivine takes Rielle to a physician to obtain some after Rielle and Audric get caught in the middle of having sex. Before the start of the series, Eliana took some medicine that made it so she would never become pregnant.
* FantasyPantheon: The seven Saints were elementals, each exceptionally gifted with a particular element. They created the Gate and were the ones that put an end to the Angelic Wars. Temples dedicated to each Saint were built and prayers related to each saint's particular magic are commonplace. There are also many references to God, but it's unclear if this God is the same as or similar to the Christian God/[[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} Jesus Christ]].

* FeministFantasy: The series features two female leads who have to deal with the unrealistic expectations forced upon them by their friends, family, and peers. Most of the characters- both named and not- are woman or girls, many of whom can dish out punishment as good as or better than their male counterparts. There's also no such thing as homophobia: there's a lot of queer characters, some of whom are married.

** There are several hints behind the Prophet's true identity hidden throughout the series before the reveal. One of the earliest is the voice that urges Simon to make a portal. It's described as sounding feminine and familiar to him. Since Simon has already met [[spoiler:Ludivine]] before, it's little wonder that he can recognize it.
** When Zahra first feels Simon's presence, she remarks that his mind is so scarred that she can't read it. [[spoiler:This is because his mind was broken years ago by the Prophet in order to make it more difficult for Corien to read.]]
* FourthDateMarriage: Towards the end of ''Kingsbane'', Rielle marries Audric despite only openly being a couple with him for a few months and a bit more than that privately. This is partly because he genuinely loves Rielle and wants to spend the rest of their lives together and because he wants to show his people that the crown of Celdaria still has faith in their Sun Queen.
* FromBadToWorse: In ''Kingsbane'', Rielle starts out the book with many dissenters who accuse her of being the Blood Queen and finishes the book [[spoiler:mindlessly killing guards on her way to join Corien]]. In Eliana's case, the mission to travel back in time to stop Rielle wasn't as easy as Simon had thought, and the consequences of her brief appearance in Old Celdaria changed several people and past events for the worse. [[spoiler:Then Simon reveals that he's been working for the Undying Empire this whole time and is bringing her and Remy to Elysium, Corien's homestead.]]
* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: Though it's more title than literal, the Blood Queen is an ApocalypseMaiden who is fated to destroy the world.
* GoldAndWhiteAreDivine: The colors for Rielle's Sun Guard are gold and white, and those that support her tend to use those colors. Though Rielle isn't a goddess, she is ''the'' most powerful elemental around; there doesn't seem to be any limit to her power, seeing as she was able to bring back the Queen of Celdaria from death.
* GoodIsNotNice: Red Crown is a rebel group dedicated to talking down the tyrannical and merciless Undying Empire. Due to who they're up against, the members of Red Crown take part in some morally questionable if not downright villainous acts themselves: using child soldiers so they have more numbers, killing innocents in order to maintain secrecy, etc.
* GoodParents: Rielle's parents were loving and kind before her mother's death, which led to her father becoming abusive. Eliana's parents also cared for her deeply and did what they could to keep her and Remy safe.
* GottaCatchThemAll: Towards the beginning of ''Kingsbane'', Rielle is tasked with finding all seven of the Saint's castings in order to restore the fracturing Gate. It's possible that the castings remember how the Gate was made, which would make repairing it more successful. Rielle manages to get three castings before her situation gets infinitely worse, bringing a screeching halt to this quest.
* GreatOffscreenWar: The Angelic Wars were a series of battles between humans and angels during the First Age. Since these battles happened centuries ago, we hear a lot about them, but never see them happen.

--> ''I am stronger than any flame that burns.''

----

* TheChosenMany: The Sun Queen is stated to be a human girl who has access to all seven elements. She will be the one to save the world from the Blood Queen, another human girl with the same or similiar powers who is destined to destroy the world. When Rielle reveals that she can control fire as well as earth and air, people wonder which of the two queens she might be. Eliana was born with a healing power, later understood to be the power of the Sun Queen that had been lying dormant within her since birth.

* BittersweetEnding: ''Lightbringer'' and thus the whole series ends with [[spoiler:Eliana empathizing with Rielle about her struggles. This helps Rielle make the decision to kill Corien. She winds up killing Ludivine in the process, and Remy and future-Eliana disappear since their timeline no longer came to pass. Rielle gives birth to a daughter, dying in a flash of light a few months afterward. Celdaria is still picking up the pieces five years later, but Audric and the wraiths sympathetic with humanity become allies. Having learned from Rielle's hardships, Audric teaches his daughter (who he's named Eliana) not to fear her powers, but to also to love other things besides them]].

* CursedWithAwesome: Eliana has control over all seven elements and later develops the ability heal others. Since the Blood Queen has already appeared and she's the only one who has these powers, she's thought to be the Sun Queen. Everyone expects her to just accept this role and save the world even when Eliana herself is terrified of her powers. %%stopped here

* DarkActionGirl: Queen Rielle was ''the'' most powerful elemental in existence; not only could she use her powers without the need of a casting, she could manipulate all seven elements as well as heal any wounds and even resurrect the dead. However, she could also kill anyone with a single flick of the wrist, and even murdered her own husband by ripping his heart out.
* ADateWithRosiePalms: In ''Furyborn'', Rielle wakes up in the middle of a session while dreaming about Corien. She has another date while fantasizing about Audric and Ludivine in ''Kingsbane''.
* DawnOfAnEra: The Fall of the Blood Queen stifled the empirium, rendering all elementals powerless and interrupting the hold any angels had on the human bodies they possessed. This would eventually usher in the reign of Corien the Undying Empire and his army of angels. [[spoiler: In the new timeline, elementals are still rendered powerless except for Rielle's daughter, a deliberate choice on her part since she knows her daughter may need them one day.]]
* ADayInTheLimelight: ''Queen of the Blazing Throne'' focuses on Obritsa, a somewhat minor character from the main series. The novella fleshes out Obritsa's backstory and motives, showing some events from ''Kingsbane'' through her perspective.
* DeadAllAlong: The real Ludivine died a couple years before the start of the series. The person calling themself Ludivine is actually an angel that took over Ludivine's body and name.
* DeadGuyJunior: [[spoiler: Eliana Ferracora helped push Rielle into killing Corien by empathizing with her ordeal. However, this resulted in Eliana F. vanishing since her timeline will no longer come to pass. In the new timeline, Audric and Rielle decide to name their daughter Eliana after Eliana F.]]
* DeadPersonImpersonation: The angel that took over Ludivine's body has been impersonating Rielle and Audric's friend for three years. Not only did the angel do so well enough to fool them, but also Ludivine's immediate relatives.
* DeceasedParentsAreTheBest: Both of Rielle's parents were kind and loving up until her mother's death. This event turned Rielle's still-living father against her. From then on, he became emotionally distant and verbally abusive by repeatedly telling her she's a dangerous monster.
* DefectorFromDecadence: Eliana used to be part of Empirical machine mainly because doing so helped keep her family safe. It takes a combination of finding out that the Empire is run and headed by angels and learning about her heritage and powers that she decides to join the rebel group Red Crown.
* DiedInYourArmsTonight: Both Eliana and Rielle end up holding their remaining parent during that parent's final moments.
* DifferentlyPoweredIndividual: Humans who have power over one of the seven elements are called "elementals".
* DisappearedDad: Eliana and Remy's father, Ioseph, went to war one day and never returned. They assumed that he died in battle. [[spoiler:In actuality, his body was possessed by an angel.]]

* DistantFinale: ''Lightbringer'''s epilogue [[spoiler:jumps forward five years after Corien's defeat and Rielle's death. Celdaria is still picking up the pieces from its battle with the angels. An alliance between wraiths and humans has been established. Audric adores his daughter, Eliana, and is taking pains to teach her that her powers are neither inherently evil nor inherently good.]].
* DramaticIrony: ''Furyborn'' makes it clear from the get go that Rielle will become the Blood Queen. This makes her struggles during the Sun Queen trials all the more tragic: she's desperate to believe that she's a savoir but the audience knows that she will eventually reject her own humanity and join Corien.

** The death of King Bastien wrecks his wife, Queen Genoveve, in both mind and body. By the time Corien makes mental visits, she was contemplating suicide so she could see Bastien again.
** A significant subplot in ''Lightbringer'' is dedicated to Audric's growing depression, thanks in no small part to learning that the love of his life had a hand in his father's death and then watching her leave to join his worst enemy on the same night they married. During the darkest point of his depression, he stands in the middle of a room and ponders suicide. Subverted, in that he ultimately doesn't go through with it.
* DyingAsYourself: Despite being turned into a crawler, [[spoiler:Rozen, Eliana's mother]], manages to regain enough of her humanity in her final moments to beg Eliana to kill her.

* ExactEavesdropping: In ''Kingsbane'', Eliana and Harkan have a discussion about Blood Queen Rielle, her legacy, and what it means to Eliana. Eliana offhandedly mentions how she killed [[spoiler:her and Remy's mother]]. The conversation comes to a grinding halt when she hears Remy let out a soft cry of despair. He had just arrived with a large stack of books and overhead what Eliana said.
* ExtraOreDinary: Metalmasters are people who can manipulate metal.

* AbusiveParents: Rielle's father was once a [[GoodParents good parent]] before his wife's unintentional death at the hands of Rielle. After this event, he began to treat Rielle incredibly coldly either by not showing her any affection or ignoring her entirely. Throughout her childhood, she was constantly reminded by him that she's a "murderer" and dangerous, as well as bringing her to the lower parts of the castle and forcibly drugging her whenever a storm came through. Rielle believes that he would keep her locked in a room for the rest of her life if he could get away with it, something that her mentor doesn't deny.
* AccidentalTimeTravel: Simon uses his marque magic to create a portal to Borsvall, hoping to hide the newborn princess among the Borsvall people per Queen Rielle's last request. However, Rielle's final act of magic changed his spell from jumping space to jumping time, which thrust both him and the princess 1,000 years into the future.

** Ever since the prophecy stating the rise of the Sun and Blood Queens, people have built up the Sun Queen as this flawless being who embodies all things good and pure. Rielle wants to live up to that ideal, but she inherently can't because she's human; she's got flaws and feelings that can be inconvenient to herself and those around her. The more she struggles to fit into the unattainable ideal of the Sun Queen, the worse her mental state becomes which in turn makes her powers unpredictable if not dangerous.
** Eliana doesn't even bother trying to be the long awaited Sun Queen because she sees herself as an unfeeling monster. She chafes at the idea that she's somehow supposed to save the world from what seems to be an unstoppable threat just because she's the daughter of a legendary couple and has some extraordinary powers.
* AilmentInducedCruelty: The bedridden King of Borsvall treats his son, Ilmaire, horribly, calling him weak and unworthy of the throne. However, considering he was [[spoiler:possessed by an angel]] at the time, its ambiguous how much of his verbal abuse was coming from him and how much of it was from [[spoiler:the angel]].

** In ''Lightbringer'', [[spoiler: after successfully convincing Rielle to destroy Corien, Remy and future-Eliana disappear. The epilogue shows a new timeline in which Audric and his daughter are living happily in a slowly recuperating Celdaria]].
* AlternativeCalendar: The timeline is split between three eras: the First Age, the Second Age, and the Third Age. The First Age was the era of strife between humanity and the angels, the Second Age was the era of peace for humanity until the very end, and the Third Age was the era of the Undying Empire's eventual rise to power.
* AmbiguousSituation: [[spoiler:When Rielle defeats Corien, Remy and future-Eliana disappear since their timeline no longer came to pass. The epilogue only focuses on how Rielle's decision affected Second Age Celdaria, leaving it unclear what became of Navi, Harkan, and all the other Third Age characters.]]
* AmplifierArtifact: Eliana forges a casting in the hopes that it'll help her tap into the empirium more easily and thus give her more control over her powers. It doesn't work that well at first, but as she slowly accepts her abilities and practices regularly with it, she begins unable to think of ever taking it off.
* AnachronicOrder: Each book begins with a prologue that shows what happened to Simon after being separated from the newborn princess. The first book in particular starts with Queen Rielle's last moments before jumping back two years. The rest of Rielle's story shows what she was like before she became the Blood Queen and how that happened. There is a 1,020 year time difference between Rielle and Eliana's plotlines, with most chapters alternating between those two eras.

* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: Starting with ''Kingsbane'', Corien, Simon, Navi, Ludivine, Jessamyn, Harkan, Audric and Taliesin get chapters from their perspective, though not all of them appear in the same book.
* AndShowItToYou: One of the stories about Queen Rielle that survived the centuries is how she ripped out her own husband's heart.
* AnotherDimension: Multiple worlds exist beyond the Deep. One in particula, Hosterah, was where the cruciata came from. Eliana glimpses a couple other worlds during her trips into the Deep with the Prophet.
* AntiHero: While she's never bought into the Empire's ideology, Eliana is more willing to aid the Empire than take it down. Much of that has to do with her desire to keep her family safe from the Empire's nonexistent mercy. After teaming up with the Wolf, seeing Crown's Hollow, and finding out she's the Sun Queen, she starts to move away from being an anti-hero to a more classic hero.
* AntiHumanAlliance: Angels hate humans due to them claiming land that, they feel, was rightfully theirs. Corien stoked those particular flames until most of his brethren banded together in order to kill them off, starting the Angelic Wars. During Rielle's time, the angels's anger shifted to hating humans because the Saints tricked them into an endless void that stripped them of their physicality.
* AnyoneCanDie: By the end of the series, several named and important characters are dead and the fate of many, many others is left ambiguous.
* ApocalypseHow: The Undying Emperor hopes to bring about a [[ApocalypseHow/Class3A Class 3a]] apocalypse, specifically wiping out all of humanity and restoring the angels to their former glory by stitching their consciousnesses into a human body. It's later suggested that not even other ''worlds'' are safe from his wrath.
* ApocalypseMaiden: Blood Queen Rielle was able to break the Gate, bringing the angels back and effectively restarting the Angelic Wars. She was also responsible for ending the age of elementals as her last powerful act of magic stifled any connection to the empirium elementals once had. This allowed Corien and his followers to grow strong, ushering in the Undying Empire and human oppression.
* ArrangedMarriage: Royal House Courverie and noble House Sauvillier have planned the marriage of Audric to Ludivine since each of their childhoods. Audric and Ludivine have known each other since birth and are close friends (and cousins), but neither of them are particularly eager to get married; Audric is in love with Rielle and Ludivine doesn't want to come between them. The engagement eventually breaks down and Audric ends up marrying Rielle.
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler:Unable to keep herself together anymore, Rielle dies in a brilliant flash of light, becoming one with the empirium.]]
* BangingForHelp: After being captured by Fidelia, Eliana wakes up in one of their cells once their drugs have worn off. When she remembers how she got there, she launches herself at her cell's door and begins throwing herself against it, calling for someone to answer her.
* BarrierMaiden: The prophecy states that the Sun Queen will save the world, presumably from the Blood Queen's wrath.

* BigBad: Corien harbors a deep hatred for humanity, especially the Saints due to their deception cutting off his kin's physicality. He uses Rielle's own fears and desires to seduce her to his side, that way he can have the most powerful being aid him in his quest for vengeance. He puts himself at the top of a new rule, the Undying Empire, and- after Rielle's death- makes it so that humanity will live in constant fear and paranoia if they don't join in his regime, or obedient adoration if they do. Despite living centuries apart, both Rielle and Eliana are forced to fight against him in their own ways.
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The series ends with Eliana talking to Rielle, empathizing with her struggles. This helps Rielle make the decision to kill Corien. She ends up killing Ludivine in the process, and Remy and future-Eliana disappear since their timeline no longer came to pass. Rielle gives birth to a daughter, dying in a flash of light a few months afterward. Before she dies, she manages to leave behind a loving letter to her child. Celdaria is still picking up the pieces five years later, but Audric and the wraiths sympathetic with humanity become allies. Having learned from Rielle's hardships, Audric teaches his daughter, Eliana, not to fear her powers and to love other things outside of it.]]
* BlackAndGrayMorality: The Undying Empire is a totalitarian regime led by a genocidal angel who allows his soldiers to rape and murder humans whenever they want. Red Crown is a rebel organization that partakes in some distasteful practices such as using child soldiers and killing innocents, but it is all for the sake of bringing down the Empire for good. It's easy to see which of the two has the moral high ground.
* BlessedWithSuck: Rielle can control all seven elements without the need of a casting, a feat no other elemental can achieve. However, it's these exact powers that mark her as one of the prophesied Queens, one of whom is apparently destined to destroy the world. Since no one can tell which Queen she is, herself included, she's forced to undergo grueling trials and intense scrutiny of her every move and thought.

* BodyguardBetrayal: Instead of helping Eliana and the rest of Red Crown escape, [[spoiler:Simon is actually bringing her to an Empire ship. Most of Red Crown is slaughtered in the ambush and Eliana and Remy are taken as prisoners]]. [[spoiler:This turns out to have been planned by the Prophet, seeing it as the only way to safely transport Eliana to where they're stationed without drawing Corien's undue attention.]]

** During ''Kingsbane'', Rielle comes across a severely wounded villager. She tries to heal his burns, the flesh she's attempting to regrow ends up enveloping her hands. By the time Audric snaps her out of her trance, the villager is nothing more than a large puddle of blood and gore.
* BookEnds: The series begins with a prologue titled "An End and a Beginning" which tells of Queen Rielle's death, the end of the elemental age, and the beginning of the newborn princess' life as a child raised in the wrong time period. The series ends with [[spoiler:Queen Rielle's death and an epilogue titled "A Beginning and an End" which shows how the major and supporting characters are fairing five years after the battle with Corien, and the start of the new Eliana's life as a princess born and raised in Celdaria]].
* BountyHunter: Eliana and Remy's mother, Rozen, used to be a bounty hunter for the Undying Empire until an injury forced her to retire. Eliana continued her mother's work in order to support what's left of her family and keep them safe. Harkan became a bounty hunter because he didn't want Eliana to work on her own.
* BrokenBird: Eliana was raised by loving parents, but had to watch as the Undying Empire overtook her hometown and forced her father to spend more time at war than at home. She was taught how to be a bounty hunter by her mother, and continues her work after Rozen was permanently injured. Eliana hates what she does, but can't see any other alternative to both earning money and keeping her family safe under the Empire's merciless tyranny. Furthermore, her unique healing power scares her and separates her from those she loves most. In order to keep from being overwhelmed by all of this, she thinks of herself as an unfeeling monster who wears a mask of gentleness. It takes becoming friends with the kind but firm Navi and falling in love with Simon before she opens up and starts to allow herself to feel grief and be vulnerable.

* BroughtDownToNormal: Queen Rielle's last blast of magic suppressed everyone's connection to the empirium, rendering each elemental powerless. In Eliana's time, the era of elementals is less fact than myth. [[spoiler: In the new timeline, Rielle does this intentionally, only leaving the godsbeats, allied wraiths, and her own daughter's powers intact.]]

* CharacterTitle: Each chapter is named after the featured character. The main books are titled after the nicknames of the last of House Courverie: Eliana the '''Furyborn''' Child, Rielle the '''Kingsbane''', and Audric the '''Lightbringer'''.
* TheChessmaster: [[spoiler:The Prophet has been manipulating events behind the scenes for years. They were the ones who orchestrated Simon becoming Corien's right hand man, Eliana being captured by Corien who they knew would use mind-speak to break her, and that her metaphorical rebirth would allow Simon to create a portal into the past for Eliana to travel through.]]
* AChildShallLeadThem: Although she's only twelve, Obritsa was declared the Queen of Kirvaya by the Magisterial Council. [[JustifiedTrope Justified]], since the vote was rigged in her favor; she'd been raised by the human revolution specifically so she could become the next queen.
* TheChosenOne: The Sun Queen is stated to be a human girl who has access to all seven elements. She will be the one to save the world from the Blood Queen, another human girl with the same or similiar powers who is destined to destroy the world. When Rielle reveals that she can control not just fire, but earth and air, people wonder which of the two queens she might be. Eliana was born with a healing power, later understood to be the power of the Sun Queen that had been lying dormant within her since birth.
* {{Cliffhanger}}: ''Kingsbane'' ends with [[spoiler: the escort mission failing, Red Crown members being killed right and left, and Simon revealing himself to be TheMole for the Empire. Eliana and Remy are at his mercy and all three are on their way to the Emperor]].
* CompleteImmortality: It's impossible for an angel to die of old age, disease, wounds, poison, etc. The only way to successfully kill an angel is by severing their connection to the empirium, something that only one of the Queens of Prophecy can accomplish.
* ConflictingLoyalty: Rielle is torn between her long held love for Audric and Corien's appeals to her bruised ego. On the hand, she'd love nothing more to stay with Audric and become a revered heroine in the eyes of her countrymen. On the other hand, her power is insatiable and always hungers for more, thus making the restrictions placed on her powers and actions all the more stifling. Corien claims that if she joins him, she'll be given free reign and won't have to answer to anyone. It's this internal conflict that drives her as much as external ones.
* {{Conlang}}: There are several languages mentioned throughout the series: Celdaria, Old Celdaria, Borsvallic, Lissar (one of the angelic languages), Common, and so on.
* ConstructedWorld: The world of [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/empirium/images/6/60/Avitas_World_Map.png/revision/latest?cb=20200126231412 Avitas]] is a fiction world split into a few continents with seven kingdoms spread throughout.
* CorruptTheCutie: Corien offers himself as a devout worshiper of Rielle, positioning himself as the one being who won't look at her in horror, unlike her fellow humans. Rielle ultimately finds the temptation of using her incredible powers as she wishes too appealing to deny. This, in addition to being called a monster by Audric, is what pushes Rielle into joining Corien.

* CrazyJealousGuy: Corien can't stand Rielle's affection for Audric, finding the prince a simpleminded, foolish dullard. He would most certainly kill Audric if not for the fact that doing so would turn Rielle's wrath against him. Instead, he limits himself to manipulating Rielle into believing Audric would hate her if he ever found out the destructive potential her powers hold and Rielle's desires to test them.
* {{Cult}}: Fidelia is a group of angel worshipers who aid the Undying Empire in their various experiments. They're ultimately the ones behind the abduction of countless women and girls.
* CursedWithAwesome: Eliana has control over all seven elements and later develops a healing ability. She's also the only one who can do this, and since the Blood Queen has already appeared, she's thought of as the Sun Queen. Everyone expects her to accept this role and save the world when she herself is terrified of her powers.

* UnderstandingBoyfriend: Ever since learning that his crush might be one of the Queens of Prophecy, Audric repeatedly assures Rielle that he'll loves her and defends her against naysayers, even when her reputation as the Blood Queen slowly grows stronger. The only moment when he has doubts is right after learning she killed her father (albeit accidentally) and lied about it, and he quickly regrets calling her a monster when she flees Baingarde. When he sees her again, she's visibly pregnant and briefly wonders if the child is Corien's, but Audric swiftly brushes the thought aside, vowing to love the child regardless.[[labelnote:*]](He ''is'' actual father, but he didn't know that at the time.)[[/labelnote]]

-->Ludivine: Stop berating her and listen to me. Corien is coming, and he's close. We should be sending out every last soldier to bolster the city's defenses against him. And I should be searching for him rather than standing here keeping you from hurting each other. I suggest we talk about this later.\\\
Audric (angrily): Fuck your suggestions. We're talking about this right now.

* TheChessmaster: [[spoiler:The Prophet has been manipulating events behind the scenes for years. They were the ones who orchestrated Simon becoming Corien's right hand man, Eliana being captured by Corien who they knew would use mind-speak to break her, and that her metophorical rebirth would allow Simon to create a portal into the past for Eliana to travel through.]]

''The Empirium Trilogy'' is a series of [[YoungAdultLiterature young adult]] [[HighFantasy fantasy]] novels written by Claire Legrand.

* HeroicSecondWind: In ''Furyborn'', Eliana is exhausted, hungry and stressed during the fight with the Empire fleet. After being forced to end [[spoiler: her own mother's]] life, she becomes so upset that she starts a raging storm without even realizing that that's what she's doing. The storm takes down most of the fleet and it confirms to Simon that she's the Sun Queen that he's been searching for. %%change to some other trope

* ItSucksToBeTheChosenOne: One of the main themes of the series is just how much being the subject of a prophecy messes with your life. Having incredible powers don't mean much if you can't use them freely, and everyone has different ideas about how they should and shouldn't be applied.

** Before finding out about her heritage, Eliana had an incredibly useful healing ability, but deep down it always worried her. After learning that she's the daughter of the infamous Blood Queen, she comes to hate and fear her powers. Unfortunately, the world needs her ''now'' more than ever and a big part of that is accepting who she really is, up to and including her powers. %%stopped here

* KissingCousins: Double subverted with Audric and Ludivine, who are a pair of engaged cousins at the beginning of the series. The engagement was arranged by their parents as part of a political move, and Audric is in love with Rielle, not Ludivine. That said, Ludivine states in ''Kingsbane'' that she'd have no issue having a threesome with Audric and Rielle, something that Audric agrees with.

* LiarRevealed: During the reception for Rielle's wedding, Corien shows everyone a vision that exposes the truth behind their previous king's death as well as his commander's: afraid that Corien would kill them, Rielle unleashed a ton of power that did end up burning Corien, but also killed the king and his commander. When Audric found her shortly thereafter, she lied to him, too scared of losing him and his love to tell him the truth. The effect this reveal has on Audric momentarily turns him against Rielle, leading the two to argue which culminates in Rielle running away from Baingarde to seek out Corien.
* LittleMissBadass: Despite being only twelve, Obritsa is already a Queen and a figurehead for the human rebellion in Kirvaya. She's quite adept at hiding her true feelings regarding elementals and is quite a powerful marque, able to travel at least thirty miles apace without breaking too much of a sweat.
* LoveMakesYouCrazy: Corien the Undying Emperor has spent a ''lot'' of time thinking about Rielle and his love for her. It gets to the point where he can't focus on much else. By the time he has Eliana in his clutches, the need to see his long lost love again trumps even his desire for resurrection.
* LoveObstructingParents: Rielle's father and both Ludivine's and Audric's parents don't approve of Rielle and Audric becoming a couple. In Ludivine and Audric's case, it's because their parents want to strengthen their political ties. In Rielle's case, it's because her father doesn't want her to overshadow Audric's talent or accidentally kill him.
* MagicAIsMagicA: There are only seven elements that a human can potentially control. Once discovered, the elemental can control that element and ''only'' that element. In order to manipulate that element, the elemental must create their own casting in order to help channel their power. The only elementals that buck these rules are the Queens of Prophecy.

* TheMagicComesBack: [[spoiler:Rielle implies during her explanations to Evyline that this might happen at some point in the future which is why she'll let her daughter and a couple others keep their powers.]]
* TheMagicGoesAway: Unable to withstand the constant pain of keeping her body together, Queen Rielle's last act of magic ends up suppressing everyone's contact with the empirium, turning elementals back to powerless humans.

* ManipulativeBastard: Pretty much as soon as he introduces himself to Rielle, Corien uses Rielle's fears in a way that slowly distances her from her peers. He plays up the hypocrisy of her loved ones; that they will restrict her freedom while claiming they love her, and once they find out just how destructive her powers are, they will turn on her in an instant.
* {{Matricide}}: Part of Rielle's backstory includes her unwittingly killing her mother. [[spoiler: After her own mother becomes a literal monster, Eliana kills Rozen to put her out of her misery.]]
* MeaningfulRename: Corien renamed himself after he escaped the Gate. He hates his original name, Kalmaroth, seeing it as an indelible reminder of his former failure during the Angelic Wars.
* MedievalEuropeanFantasy: The setting of the Second Age includes kingdoms ruled by some form of monarchy, swords and their various accoutrements for weapons, and most- if not everybody- seem to be heavily rebellious. By the time of the Third Age, some technological advancements regarding weaponry have been invented and clothes tend to more resemble 20th century clothing.
* MercyKill: When one of the crawlers attacking her turns out to be [[spoiler:her mother]], Eliana kills her, knowing that it's too late to save her.
* MindControl: An angel can easily take control over anyone weaker than it, even after becoming a wraith. The only beings that they can't control are the cruciata, due to said creatures wildly different mind.

* MirrorCharacter: A lot about Rielle and Eliana- both their stories and their personalities- mirror one another. Aside from the obvious fact that they're both subjects of a prophecy and share incredible powers, they're also both young woman who have to deal with other people's expectations of how they should use those powers, how they should behave, what their role(s) is/are, etc.

* MsExposition: Most of Zahra's dialogue in ''Furyborn'' and ''Kingsbane'' is to explain to Eliana about the ways of the Old World. This is helpful, not just for Eliana (who thought the stories of the Old World where just that- stories), but also for the reader.
* MysteriousBacker: The leader of Red Crown is known only as the Prophet; everything else about them is a mystery.
* NamedWeapons: Several characters give their weapons names. Audric's casting is named Illumenor and Eliana has Arabeth and Whistler among others.

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Corien (whose angelic name is Kalmaroth) is a genocidal maniac who has no compunctions about using anyone and anything in any way he sees fit so long as doing so benefits him in some way.
* NeverFoundTheBody: In ''Furborn'', Harkan volunteers to make a last stand against the Empire's soldiers- a suicidal move- as a means of distraction. As Eliana rides away, she hears Harkan cry out, but doesn't look back to see if he was shot. Both she and Remy believe him to be dead. Towards the beginning of ''Kingsbane'', Harkan turns up at the Astavari castle, battered and dirty, but very much alive.

* NoPeriodsPeriod: Averted twice in ''Kingsbane''. The first chapter opens with Rielle lamenting the fact that Sun Queen status doesn't lessen her menstrual cramps. Later on, Eliana starts hers and experiences the cramps that come with it for the first time (her healing ability made it so she never experienced that pain until now).

* NotSoDifferentRemark: After capturing Obritsa and torturing Artem, Corien states that he and Obritsa are both motivated by the love they each have for their people.
* NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist: Corien does genuinely want to restore his brethren, the angels, to flesh and blood. However, the reason he's doing this isn't entirely selfless: he views humanity as an inferior species and yet is also jealous of their power over the elementals- something that the ancient angels cannot even claim. As such, he'll happily kill all humans to make room for the angels. It's also suggested, if not outright stated, that he's angry with God and will move heaven and earth to go against Him in any way he can.
* OlderThanTheyLook: All the angels are centuries old (or even older) and none of them look a day over thirty.
* OmnicidalManiac: Corien is an exceptionally strong angel who holds a deep hatred for the Saints, mainly due to a deception that led to him and his fellow angels being ripped of their physicality. This hatred extends to ''all'' of humankind, and he has taken it upon himself to use kill every last one of them.

* OurAngelsAreDifferent: Angels are winged humanoid beings with various mental related powers that are separate from the main seven elemental ones. They existed long before humans and are impossible to kill through ordinary means.

* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: When she was younger, Eliana loved hearing stories about the time before the Fall, a time when the empirium was still available and magic still in use. By the start of the series, she views those same stories and all talk about the Sun Queen's eventual arrival and her victory over the Undying Empire as mere wishful thinking at best.

* PlotParallel: Much of Rielle and Eliana's plots parallel each other, from the broader strokes- becoming one of the two prophesied Queens- to some minor details- such as each of them having a wraith ally.
* PossessingADeadBody: When she was sixteen, the real Ludivine died of a fever. An angel took over her body and has been in control of it since then. It's this angel that aids Rielle throughout the trials and traveling to various countries in search of the Saints' castings.
* PregnantBadass: By the time Rielle joins the angels, she's pregnant with Eliana. She doesn't let her prgnancy get in the way of aiding Corien with his resurrection plan.
* TheProphecy: The last angel to enter the Deep uttered a prophecy stating the rise of a pair of Queens, each one more powerful than what has been seen before. By Rielle's time, this prophecy has been subject to much dissection and interpretation among academics, with most laypeople not giving it much thought. By Eliana's time, it's mostly dismissed as mere wishful thinking.
--> ''"The Gate will fall. The angels will return and bring ruin to the world. You will know this time by the rise of two human Queens- one of blood, and one of light. One with the power to save the world. One with the power to destroy it. Two Queens will rise. They will carry the power of the Seven. They will carry your fate in their hands. Two Queens will rise."''
* PowerCrutch: Elementals have to craft a casting through which they can channel their abilities. Even the Saints, as strong as they were, needed one. The fact that Rielle ''doesn't'' need one is another mark of how powerful she is. Theoretically, Eliana doesn't need one either, but since her connection to the empirium is much weaker, she makes a casting anyway in order to help with tapping into and controling her powers.

* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: Rielle's storyline is about how she started out as the long awaited Sun Queen, beloved by many, to the long feared and widely hated Blood Queen, traitor of her kind.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: King Bastien and his wife, Queen Genoveve, are the ultimate authority in Celdaria and neither of them abuse their power. Even after learning about Rielle's incredible powers- and that her deceit regarding those powers put their son in danger- King Bastien asks Rielle various questions related to her powers and why she kept them secret. When he decrees that she will be undergoing trials to test her abilities, its made clear that he doesn't really want to make that call, but he can't just ignore what she's done.

* RepressionNeverEndsWell: Ever since she was five, Rielle was forced to hide her powers and, to some extent, her person from the world. As the years passed, she began to believe her father's verbal abuse- continually reminding her that she's a monster/killer/dangerous/etc.- and thus eventually stopped fighting him for her freedom. This has the unintended side effect of making her powers more volatile, culminating in one particular burst of raw power that winds up killing, not just Rielle's father, but Audric's father too (who is also the King of Celdaria).

* RetGone: Once they convince Rielle to kill Corien, [[spoiler: Remy and future-Eliana disappear, since the circumstances that brought them to the past no longer happened]].

** In ''Kingsbane'', [[spoiler: Simon reveals himself to be a double agent for the Empire. Eliana's adoptive father was taken over by an angel. With the help of Aryava, the Saints tricked the angels into going into the Deep]].
** In ''Lightbringer'', [[spoiler:the Prophet is Ludivine. She's been orchestrating everything behind the scenes, including Simon's betrayal]].
* RomanticFalseLead: Harkan is set up from the beginning as a close friend and lover to Eliana. Once Simon enters the picture though, it becomes clear through the various ship tease moments that Eliana will pair up with Simon at some point. Harkan seems to die, and though Eliana does mourn his death, she likes to spar verbally and physically with Simon as a means of distraction, letting the both of them become closer. When Harkan reappears, he abducts Eliana shortly thereafter in order to force her to travel with him to Astavar. This betrayal turns Eliana against Harkan almost completely, effectively ending their relationship. They remain civil to one another and Eliana still feels some residual love for him, but whatever romance they once shared becomes a thing of the past.
* RoyalsWhoActuallyDoSomething: Audric is the Prince of Celdaria and does what can to ensure the happiness and safety of his subjects; he reaches out to the Borsvallic prince in order to reforge the lost friendship between their two countries, he stops a massive storm created by the empirium by himself to help save an ally country's capital, etc.
* RuleOfSeven: There are seven Saints, each one representing one of the seven available elements.
* SadisticChoice: After getting fed up with Eliana's continued rebellion, Corien makes her choose between saving her brother or saving her still-alive father from a fall to their deaths. She can't use her powers to save them both for he'll kill them anyway if she tries. She saves Remy.

* SecretTestOfCharacter: While traveling through the Vespers, Navi and her crew are ambushed with Navi getting drugged so she passes out. When she wakes up, a masked figure aligned with the Undying Empire asks her if she will join them or die. Navi responds with the Sun Queen's prayer and the wish that the Sun Queen would destroy the Empire. The masked figure is pleased by this, revealing themself to be Ysabet, the leader of the Vesper branch of Red Crown; the same woman that Navi and her crew were traveling to meet.

* SentientCosmicForce: The empirium is a magical force that everything in Avitas is made out of. The ability to tap into it is what gives humans their powers. As one of the Queens of Prophecy, Rielle can hear and even request help from the empirium, especially as her connection to it grows stronger.
* SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: The main gist of the Prophet's plan is to use Simon's time traveling magic to go back into the past and have Eliana convince Rielle to kill Corien. This will nip the Undying Empire in the bud, as well as all the other horrific plans Corien has enacted during the Third Age.

* SpecialPersonNormalName: Simon is one of the most important characters in the series since his time traveling magic is a key component in the Prophet's plan to finally take down Corien. He also has the most normal name out of all of them.

* StandardFantasySetting: The setting of the Second Age includes seven kingdoms, all of whom are head by one or two Kings, Queens, or some combination of thereof. Technology is limited to swords, arrows, and what not for regular humans and those plus one element for anyone who can tap into the empirium.

* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: The plan to taking down Corien and thus the Undying Empire is to go back in time and convince Queen Rielle to kill him. The first time Eliana and Simon try this, Rielle believes Eliana is an illusion conjured by Corien. [[spoiler: The second time, Eliana has a better understanding of the pain and heartbreak that Rielle is going through, having experienced some of it herself. The empathetic conversation that Eliana has with her convinces Rielle to kill Corien.]]

* ThatManIsDead: Corien loathes being called by his angelic name, Kalmaroth. He views that version of himself as an embarrassing failure and would love to forget that he was ushered into the Deep like the rest of his brethren.

* TimeSkip: There is a five year gap between the final chapter of ''Lightbringer'' and its epilogue.
* TimeTravel: One of the solutions to ending the Undying Empire for good is to kill its leader, Corien, before he could create it. In order to do this, Simon has Eliana go back to the Second Age and try to talk Rielle into finishing off Corien.

* TraumaCongaLine: At age five, Rielle killed her mother inadvertently. This turned her once loving father against her to the point of being emotionally and verbally abusive. He and her mentor, Taliesin, essentially ignore her wants and desires under the guise of keeping her safe, both her from the public and the public from her. They force her to keep her powers suppressed and hidden from everyone, even her best friends, one of whom is a prince. This blows up in all of their faces (in more ways than one) when she saves the prince from assassins but winds up killing innocents in the process. The King has her then undergo a series of grueling trials in order to determine if she's the menace her father keeps telling her that she is. (Between two trials, a noble tries to assassinate her and she only survives thanks to her unique powers.) The last trial she ends up doing has her essentially relive the night her mother died. At first, it seems to go well [[spoiler:until Corien takes over various soldier's minds, turning the vicinity into a veritable bloodbath, during which she watches her other best friend get thrown off a cliff. Then it turns out that this friend actually died years ago and the person she's been talking to since the beginning of this whole affair is actually an angel, a being that humans have feared and hated for centuries]]. And all of that is only the beginning.
* TrialByOrdeal: In order to determine whether Rielle is the Blood or Sun Queen, the King of Celdaria has Rielle undergo seven trials, one for each element. If she can control her powers and prove her virtuousness, then she will be declared the Sun Queen. If she can't, either the trials will kill her off or she'll be executed. The first trial she goes through, she's thrown onto a mountain and has to use earthshaker powers in order to survive an avalanche.

* TwoLinesNoWaiting: The trilogy follows the lives of Rielle and Eliana as they come to grips with their powers and the expectations that come with them. Rielle's story is about her rise as the Sun Queen and the events that caused her to turn into the Blood Queen. Eliana's story is about her learning the truth behind her powers and heritage, all while trying to figure out how to bring the Undying Empire to its knees. Their stories eventually intersect towards the end of the trilogy.

* TheUnreveal: The name of the angel that took over Ludivine's body is never stated. Corien even tries to say it at one point but gets cut off by Rielle before he can.
* UnspokenPlanGuarantee: In ''Kingsbane'', after Eliana is abducted by Harkan, Remy insists on going with Simon to find her. Simon mentions a plan, but it isn't stated what this plan is. Whatever it was succeeds for not only does Simon find Eliana, he manages to get her to use her powers in a constructive way for the first time. Later in that same novel, Eliana and a few members of Red Crown discuss ways in which to defeat the Undying Empire. The one plan that gets any detail is Simon's suggestion of going back in time to convince Rielle to kill Corien, the angel who created the Empire centuries ago. Naturally, this plan fails.
* UnstablePoweredWoman: As Rielle becomes more and more connected to the empirium, her mental state deteriorates. It gets to a point where Corien- the genocidal angel- worries after her health, often having to remind her that she's not immortal and has to take better care of her self.

* VillainousLegacy: The impact Rielle's death had on Avitas can be felt even 1,000 years later. Eliana and many others blame her for the rise of the angels and rendering all elementals powerless.
* VoidBetweenTheWorlds: The Deep is an empty pocket of darkness, made of raw empirium, that exists between the world of Avitas and all other worlds. Only the truly powerful can enter it and keep their physicality, something even the angels couldn't achieve.

** Eliana favors knives and daggers as her hunting tool.

* WhatTheHellHero: Eliana goes to an angelic commander, wanting to exchange the information she gathered about a nearby Red Crown hangout for her family's safety. The next morning, Red Crown ambushes the facility that Eliana went to, killing every prisoner they can find. Simon informs Eliana that the ambush they originally planned would've been to rescue those very same prisoners, but Red Crown can't let anyone who's seen Eliana live. Simon says all of this while the sound of shotguns go off in the background, forcing her to listen as each prisoner is killed. And as if that wasn't enough, the Red Crown outpost she fled from and informed the commander about is being attacked by the Empire soldiers. Many refugees die and the outpost is abandoned.
%% WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: ''Lightbringer'''s epilogue [[spoiler:jumps forward five years after Corien's defeat and Rielle's death. Celdaria is still picking up the pieces from its battle with the angels. An alliance between wraiths and humans have been established. Audric adores his daughter, Eliana, and is taking pains to teach her that her powers are neither inherently evil nor inherently good. Ilmaire's stopped running away from his responsibilities, and now rules Borsvall alongside his husband, Leevi]].
* WildChild: Simon turns into a feral child after spending a year on the desolate mountain he was transported to. He quickly learns how to kill and skin animals in order to feed himself. By the time Corien finds him, Simon is so starved for any kind of interaction that he doesn't mind much that the man giving it is the leader of the angels.

* WorstWeddingEver: Soon after his coronation, Audric and Rielle host a huge wedding. Everything seems to be going perfectly, and Rielle can't imagine being any happier. Then Corien takes over Ludivine's mind and reveals to the whole assembly that their former king died due to Rielle's actions. The wedding quickly devolves into chaos, coming to a head when Audric takes Rielle aside to question her about the all lies she's told/been forced to keep.
* WouldHurtAChild: Corien kidnaps elemental children and forces their powers to emerge prematurely. He then has these children forge castings, both for themselves and for the beasts he's crafted in order to better utilize their elemental abilities during battle.

* WritersCannotDoMath: Remy's age and the subsequent age gap between him and Eliana changes a couple times throughout the series. The first flashback into Eliana's past we get in ''Furyborn'' says she made her first kill when she was twelve and Remy was five, which means they're seven years apart in age. However, another flashback in the same novel explains she was ten when her father disappeared and the text states Remy was an infant- a baby, in other words- when that happened, which makes their age gap about ten years.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/furyborncover.jpg]]

* GreatOffscreenWar: The Angelic Wars were a series of battles between humans and angels during the First Age. Since these battles happened centuries ago, we hear a lot about them, but never see them happen. %%stopped here

* HalfIdenticalTwins: The male Ilmaire and the female Ingrid are a pair of twins, born to the King of Borsvall. They both sport the Borsvallic blond eyes and hair and are similarly pale skinned. In terms of personality, though, they're quite different.
* HandWave: The Prophet essentially shrugs off Eliana's concerns about how her tampering with the past will affect the present with a "don't worry about it."
* HarmfulToMinors: Life isn't easy for children regardless of time period: if you're an elemental child living in the Second Age, you could be kidnapped and forced to become a soldier for an despotic angel. If you live in the Third Age, you could be forced to become a killer for your own survival and that of your family's (assuming they're still alive).
* HealingFactor:
** In ''Furyborn'', Eliana can jump 100 feet off of one dock onto another and only feel a bit of pain. This invulnerability is what earned her the nickname the "Dread of Orline". However, this trait goes away once she's unlocked her powers. Remy suggests her super fast healing ability was only because her power had nothing else to do.
** In ''Lightbringer'', Rielle incurs bad burns while opening the Gate. She's able to heal them within seconds with a mere thought, so in tuned she is with the empirium at this point.
* HealingHands: After gaining better control of her powers, Eliana obtains the ability to heal wounds and past scars. [[spoiler: She even revives Remy from death.]]
* HereThereWereDragons: Godsbeasts were powerful, ancient creatures who were more in-tune to the empirium than most elementals. In Eliana's time, it's believed that they became extent or were never even real in the first place.
* HeroOfAnotherStory: After Rielle and company split ways with Ilmaire and his companions, Ilmaire doesn't make a further reappearance but he isn't fully out of the picture; excerpts from the letters he sends to Audric, and from his journal, are placed at the beginning of several chapters in both ''Kingsbane'' and ''Lightbringer''. The excerpts show his own personal journey as he tries to fit into the crown his recently deceased father left, deal with Merovec, and eventually strike out on his own to find a way to aid Audric and his kingdom with the angelic threat.
* HeroesPreferSwords: Audric is the most powerful sunspinner to be seen in decades, if not centuries, and his main casting- Illumenor- is a sword. In ''Lightbringer'', he uses Illumenor in order to drive off a Gate-induced storm from destroying Quelbani, the capital of Mazabat.
* HeroicSecondWind: In ''Furyborn'', Eliana gets one during the fight with the Empire's crawlers. Exhausted, hungry, and distraught, she starts a raging storm without even realizing that that's what she's doing. The storm takes down most of Empire's fleet and it confirms to Simon that she's the Sun Queen that he's been searching for.
* HisNameIs: During one of his mind-speak conversations with Rielle, Corien is about to reveal the name of the angel that took over Ludivine's body. Rielle cuts him off, saying that that information isn't his to tell.
* HorsebackHeroism: During the annual horse race, Rielle sees a horseless Audric about to be attacked by assassins from an enemy country. Without a second thought, she rides to where he is and uses her powers to stop their assault.
* HowWeGotHere: The prologue of ''Furyborn'' shows Rielle giving birth to Eliana and facing down Corien, an encounter that leads to Simon and the newborn being thrust into the future and the empirium being smothered. The narrative then jumps back two years ago to a time before Rielle's powers were even widely known; the rest of her story details how she got to the state she was in during the prologue. [[spoiler:Subverted in that the exact events depicted in this prologue don't come to pass thanks to future-Eliana's interference.]]
* HumansAreFlawed: One theme woven throughout the trilogy is that no human is perfect. Trying to force someone to be completely flawless is inhumane and will bring about more misery, and not just for the person being scrutinized. Eliana pretty much states this theme outright during the climax of ''Lightbringer'':
--> [[spoiler: Queen Rielle]]: I don't know how to be what I am, split in two like this. [...] I am but one queen. One queen with the desires of two. I cannot bear it.\\
Eliana: You can, and you will. We all have light and darkness inside us. That is what it means to be human.\\
[[spoiler: Queen Rielle]]: And if I am more than human?\\
Eliana: Then you must carry more of the light, and more of the darkness too, and so must I.
* IAmAMonster: Eliana sees herself as a heartless monster due to her work as a bounty hunter for the very Empire that took over her home kingdom. This view of herself gets worse after unleashing her powers in catastrophic ways and finding out that her birth mother was the Blood Queen herself. After some soul searching, she comes to terms with her powers and her heritage, helping her self-image improve.

** Corien was Kalmaroth before being banished to the Deep along with his kin. After escaping, he renamed himself to Corien and began building an empire with him on top. By the Third Age, he's only known as the Undying Emperor to all humans and most- if not all- of his underlings.

* ImmortalityBeginsAtTwenty: The completely immortal angels all look like they're in their early twenties.
* ImpartialPurposeDrivenFaction: The Obex aren't associated with any particular country or ruler. Their main goal and purpose is protecting and studying the Gate.
* INeedAFreakingDrink: Ludivine suggests partaking in some celebratory drinks after Rielle successfully completes the first trial. Much later on, Rielle damages the Gate even more and the Obex give Rielle the task of finding the Saint's castings on her own. Ingrid offers up a round of drinks to which Ludivine holds up a hand.
* InfoDump: Chapter 37 of ''Lightbringer'' is dedicated to a conversation between Eliana and the Prophet. For the most part, it's just the Prophet explaining their plan to Eliana and, by extension, the audience; why they had Simon pretend to be loyal to Corien and his Empire, why Eliana was allowed to be tortured for moths at Corien's merciless hands, what the Prophet wants Eliana to do now and how Simon plays into it, and so on.
* InMysteriousWays: Taliesin says the empirium "works in mysterious ways" as a way to dismiss Rielle's concerns that the prophesied Queen's are going to appear soon.
* InstantFanClub: Soon after Ludivine's dramatic entrance during Rielle's anointing, a group calling themselves the House of the Second Sun formed. They're obsessed with Rielle and how she brought Ludivine back from the dead. (She didn't really, but the general public doesn't know this.) Group activities include reenactments of Ludivine's death, resurrection, and reappearance.

* InterruptedIntimacy: Rielle and Audric are about to go all the way when Ludivine's father walks in on them.

** Saint Katell was in love with the angel Aryava. Historians consider their relationship be to be main reason the Angelic Wars ended.
** Rielle develops a love-hate relationship with Corien; she both fears him but finds his offers of worship too appealing to deny.
* ItSucksToBeTheChosenOne: One of the main themes of the series is just how much being the subject of a prophecy messes with your life. Having incredible powers don't mean much if you can't use them freely, and everyone has different ideas about how they should and shouldn't applied.
** Despite how much grief her father gives her for being powerful, Rielle takes pride in being able to summon split the sea, control a shadow dragon, and summon fireballs all without the need of a casting, but everyone expects her to use these abilities to protect crown and country. She would love to reveal in her abilities as much as she wants, but she can't without potentially destroying someone or something. It's why Corien's words of devotion and his promise that ''he'' will never fear her are so appealing.
** Before finding out about her heritage, Eliana had an incredibly useful healing ability, but deep down it always worried her. After learning that she's the daughter of the infamous Blood Queen, she comes to hate and fear her powers. Unfortunately, the world ''needs'' her now more than ever and a big part of that is accepting who she really is, up to and including her powers.

* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: ''Lightbringer'''s epilogue [[spoiler:jumps forward five years after Corien's defeat and Rielle's death. Celdaria is still picking up the pieces from its battle with the angels. An alliance between wraiths and humans have been established. Audric adores his daughter, Eliana, and is taking pains to teach her that her powers are neither inherently evil nor inherently good. Ilmaire's stopped running away from his responsibilities, and now rules Borsvall alongside his husband, Leevi]].

* GoldAndWhiteAreDivine: The colors for Rielle's Sun Guard are gold and white, and those that support her tend to use those colors. Though Rielle isn't a goddess, she is ''the'' most powerful elemental around; there doesn't seem to be any limit to her power, seeing as she was able to bring back the Queen of Celdaria from death. %%stopped here
* GoodIsNotNice: Red Crown is a rebel group dedicated to talking down the tyrannical and merciless Undying Empire. Due to who they're up against, the members of Red Crown take part in some morally questionable if not downright villainous acts themselves: using child soldiers, killing innocents, etc.
* GoodParents: Rielle's parents were loving and kind before her mother's death. Eliana's parents also cared for her deeply and did what they could to keep her and Remy safe.
* GottaCatchThemAll: In order to restore the Gate, Rielle is tasked with finding all seven of the Saint's castings. It's possible that the castings remember how the Gate was made, which will make repairing it more successful. Rielle manages to get three castings before her situation gets infinitely worse.
* GreatOffscreenWar: The Angelic Wars were a series of ongoing battles between humans and angels. Since these battles happened centuries ago, we hear a lot about them, but never see them happen.

* FromBadToWorse: In ''Kingsbane'', Rielle starts out the book with many dissenters who accuse her of being the Blood Queen and finishes the book [[spoiler:mindlessly killing guards on her way to join Corien]]. In Eliana's case, the mission to travel back in time to stop Rielle wasn't as easy as Simon had thought, and the consequences of her brief appearance in Old Celdaria changed several people and past events for the worse. [[spoiler:Then Simon reveals that he's been working for the Undying Empire this whole time and is bringing her and Remy to Elysium, Corien's homestead.]] %%stopped here
* GodSaveUsFromTheQueen: Though it's more title than literal, the Blood Queen is an ApocalypseMaiden who's appearance will ultimately destroy the world.
* GoldAndWhiteAreDivine: The colors for Rielle's Sun Guard are gold and white, and those that support her tend to use those colors. Though Rielle isn't a goddess, she is ''the'' most powerful elemental around; there doesn't seem to be any limit to her power, seeing as she was able to bring back the Queen of Celdaria from death.

* CorruptTheCutie: Corien offers himself as a devout worshiper of Rielle, positioning himself as the one being who won't look at her in horror, unlike her fellow humans. Rielle ultimately finds the temptation of using her incredible powers as she wishes too appealing to deny. This, in addition to being called a monster by Audric, is what pushes Rielle into joining Corien. %%stopped here
* CostumePorn: The outfits Rielle wears for the Sun Queen trials, as well as her wedding dress, are all lovingly described whereas all other forms of clothing are given basic descriptions.

* CrazyJealousGuy: Corien can't stand Rielle's affection for Audric, finding the prince a simpleminded, foolish dullard. He would most certainly kill Audric if not for the fact that doing so would irreparably turn Rielle's wrath against him. Instead, he limits himself to manipulating Rielle into beliving Audric would hate her if he ever found out the destructive potential her powers hold and Rielle's desires to test them.

* CursedWithAwesome: Eliana has all seven elements at her disposal. This marks her as the Sun Queen, a title she never wanted. She's also afraid of accidentally hurting one of her loved ones with her powers.
* DarkActionGirl: Queen Rielle was ''the'' most powerful elemental in existence: not only could she use her powers without the need of a casting, she could manipulate all seven elements as well as heal any wounds and even resurrect the dead. However, she could also kill anyone with a single flick of the wrist, and even murdered her own husband by ripping his heart out.

* ADayInTheLimelight: ''Queen of the Blazing Throne'' focuses on Obritsa, a somewhat minor character from the main series. The novella fleshes out Obritsa's backstory and motives as well as showing some events from ''Kingsbane'' through her perspective.
* DeadAllAlong: The real Ludivine died a couple years ago. The Ludivine currently present is an angel that simply took over her body and name.
* DeadPersonImpersonation: The angel that took over Ludivine's body has been impersonating her for three years. Not only did she do so well enough to fool Rielle and Audric, but also Ludivine's immediate relatives.
* DeceasedParentsAreTheBest: Both of Rielle's parents were kind and loving, but until her mother's death. This event turned her still-living father against her; from then on, he'd become emotionally distant and even verbally abusive by repeatedly telling her she's a dangerous monster.

* DisappearedDad: Eliana and Remy's father, Ioseph, went to war one day and never returned. It's assumed that he died in battle.

* DramaticIrony: ''Furyborn'' makes it clear from the get go that Rielle will become the Blood Queen. This makes her struggles during the Sun Queen trials all the more tragic: she's desperate to believe that she's a savoir but the audience knows that she will wind up believing the worst of herself.
* DyingAsYourself: [[spoiler:Eliana's mother]] manages to regain enough of her humanity in her final moments to beg Eliana to kill her.

* ElementalPowers: There are seven elements available to elementals: sun, air, fire, water, shadow, metal and earth. Excluding the Sun and Blood Queen, each elemental can only control and eventually master one element.
* EncyclopediaExposita: Some of the quotes at the beginning of each chapter are taken from an InUniverse historical or academic book. These excerpts are used as a way to expand upon the world of Avitas without disrupting the overall pacing.

* {{Epigraph}}: Each chapter of each novel starts off with a quote of some kind. The quotes usually tie into the content of the chapter in some way, be it obvious or subtle; for example, the chapter that details Rielle's water trial starts off with the Water Rite.
* ExactEavesdropping: During Eliana and Harkan's discussion of Blood Queen Rielle, her legacy, and what it means to Eliana, she mentions how she [[spoiler:killed her and Remy's mother]]. Their conversation comes to a grinding halt when she hears Remy let out a soft cry of despair. He had just been arriving with a large stack of books.

* FaceHeelTurn: Rielle wanted to become the long awaited Sun Queen, hero to country and crown. However, her overwhelming amount of power attracted Corien, who saw her as a way to return his brethren to their former glory. He dredges up her deepest fears- such as her ability to easily cause destruction, and how once everyone finds out what she is truly capable of, they'll turn against her- in order to further distance her from her loved ones. When these fears seem to be proven true, she ditches Audric, Ludivine, and everyone else and joins Corien.
* FaceMonsterTurn: [[spoiler:Eliana's mother]] was a genuinely good parent who only wanted to keep her children safe from the Undying Empire. Upon being abducted by Fidelia, though, she underwent a transformation into a crawler, a not-quite-human beast. She manages to retain a bit of her humanity at the last minute when she asks Eliana to kill her.
* FantasticRacism: There is equal animosity between humans and angels. Angels hate humans because they keep taking land they lived on first. Humans hate angels because the angels keep hunting them down. Both species despise marques because of their half-breed nature and their powers over space and time. In Kirvaya, there's also a contingent of elementals who force the nonpowered population into slavery.
* FantasyContraception: Maidsright herbs are a type of medicinal plant that acts as a form of birth control. Ludivine takes Rielle to a physician to obtain some after Rielle and Audric get caught in the middle of having sex. Before the start of the series, Eliana took some medicine that rendered her infertile.
* FantasyPantheon: The seven Saints were humans that were each exceptionally gifted in a particular magic. They created the Gate and were the ones that put an end the Angelic Wars. In Rielle's time, temples dedicated to each Saint exist as well as prayers related to that particular saint's magic. There are also many references to God, but it's unclear if this God is the same or similar to the Christian God/[[UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}} Jesus Christ]].
* FateWorseThanDeath: Upon entering the Deep, the angels were stripped of their bodies. All of their senses became muted and many of them became far weaker than they were before. Possessing a body doesn't help: no matter how much they eat or drink or how much sex they have, they can never get complete fulfillment or satisfaction from these activities. It's one of the reasons Corien hates the Saints so much and is so determined to resurrect his king.
* FeministFantasy: The series features two female leads who have to deal with the unrealistic expectations forced upon them by their friends, family, and peers. Most of the characters, both named and not, are woman or girls, most of whom can dish out punishment as good as or better than their male counterparts. There's also no such thing as homophobia- there's a lot of queer characters, some of whom are married, and ''no one'' suggests that their love is unnatural.

* {{Foil}}: Corien is a foil for the Prophet. They both used to be angels who were forced into the Deep by the Saints. Both use their angelic powers in order to achieve their goals and they both become leaders of powerful organizations. That's where the similarities end: unlike Corien, who hates humans and can't forgive them for what the Saints did, the Prophet has nothing but love and understanding for humans. As such, she's naturally on the opposing side, and tries to help out where she can, both with Rielle during the Second Age and Eliana in the Third.

** There are several hints behind the Prophet's true identity hidden throughout the series before the reveal. One of the earliest is the voice that urges Simon to make a portal. It's described as sounding feminine and familiar to him. Since Simon has already met [[spoiler:Ludivine]], it's little wonder that he can recognize it.
** When Zahra first feels Simon's presence, she remarks that his mind is so scarred that not even she can read it. [[spoiler:This is because his mind was broken years ago by the Prophet in order to make it more difficult for Corien to read.]]
* FourthDateMarriage: Towards the end of ''Kingsbane'', Rielle marries Audric despite only officially being a couple with him for a few months and a bit more than that privately. This is partly because he wants to show his people that the crown of Celdaria still has faith in their Sun Queen and partly because he genuinely loves Rielle and wants to spend the rest of their lives together.
* FromBadToWorse: For both Rielle and Eliana in ''Kingsbane''. Rielle starts out the book with many dissenters who accuse her of being the Blood Queen and finishes the book [[spoiler:mindlessly killing bodyguards on her way to join Corien]]. In Eliana's case, the mission to travel back in time to stop Rielle wasn't as easy as Simon had thought and the consequences of her brief appearance in Old Celdaria changed several people and past events for the worse. [[spoiler:Then Simon reveals that he's been working for the Undying Empire this whole time and her once thought-to-be deceased father turns out to be the Emperor's Admiral.]]

* BroughtDownToNormal: Queen Rielle's last blast of magic suppressed everyone's connection to the empirium, rendering each elemental powerless. In Eliana's time, the era of elementals is less fact than myth. [[spoiler: In the new timeline, Rielle does this intentionally, only leaving the godsbeats, allied wraiths, and her own daughter's powers intact.]] %%stopped here

* CharacterTitle: Each chapter is named after the featured point-of-view character. The main books are titled after the nicknames of the last of House Courverie: Eliana the ''Furyborn'' Child, Rielle the ''Kingsbane'', and Audric the ''Lightbringer''.
* TheChosenOne: The Sun Queen is stated to be a human girl who has access to all seven elements. She will be the one to save the world from the Blood Queen, another human girl with the same or similiar powers who is destined to destroy the world. When Rielle reveals that she can control not just fire, but earth and air, people wonder which of the two queens she might be.
* AChildShallLeadThem: Though she's only twelve, Obritsa was declared the Queen of Kirvaya by the Magisterial Council. Justified in that the vote was rigged in favor of Obritsa, who had been raised by the human revolution to become the next queen.
* {{Cliffhanger}}: ''Kingsbane'' ends with [[spoiler: the evacuation failing, many members of Red Crown being killed, and Simon revealing himself to be an agent for the Empire. Eliana and Remy are at his mercy and all three are on their way to the Emperor]].
* CompleteImmortality: It's impossible for an angel to die of old age, disease, wounds, etc. The only way to successfully kill one is by severing their connection to the empirium, something that only one of the Queens of Prophecy can potentially accomplish.

* ConstructedWorld: The world of [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/empirium/images/6/60/Avitas_World_Map.png/revision/latest?cb=20200126231412 Avitas]] has very different geography from our own.
* CorruptTheCutie: Corien offers himself as a devout worshiper of Rielle, positioning himself as the one being who won't look at her in horror, unlike her fellow humans. Rielle ultimately finds the temptation of using her incredible powers as she wishes too appealing to deny. This, in addition to being called a monster by Audric, is what pushes Rielle into joining Corien.

In a world where people can control only one element, Rielle Dardenne can control all seven. There are just two people who are said to possess such power: a Queen of light and renewal and a Queen of death and destruction. A prophecy foretells of their arrival but it does not specify which Queen will appear first. For all her father knows, Rielle could be either.

Questioning her intentions and control, the King gives Rielle an ultimatum: she must face seven trials that will test her powers and morality. If she passes all of the trials, she will be deemed the Sun Queen, savior of the land. If she fails, she will be executed- if she can even survive the trials first.

Over 1,000 years in the future lives a young women named Eliana Ferracora. She keeps a powerful secret: she is nigh invulnerable. Cuts and bruises heal quickly and even falling off a roof leaves not a scratch. This mysterious power is an asset given that she is a bounty hunter for the Undying Empire, a ruthless dictatorship that invaded her kingdom and many others.

When women and girls start to mysteriously vanish, Eliana suspects that the rebel group known as Red Crown is behind it all. After her own mother disappears, she crosses paths with the Wolf: a masked killer and right hand man to the Prophet, the mysterious leader of Red Crown. The Wolf makes a deal with her: if she joins him, he will help her find her mother. Knowing that this might be her only chance, Eliana accepts. Her missions with the Wolf slowly reveal a darker truth about the Empire and its leader, ones that will make Eliana question what she is fighting for as well as her own identity.

''The Empirium Trilogy'' is a series of [[YoungAdultLiterature young adult]] [[HighFantasy fantasy]] novels written by Claire Legrand. The series consists of:

* ''Queen of the Blazing Throne'' (2020, ebook): an interquel novella starring Obritsya, Kirvaya's child queen

* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler:Unable to keep herself together anymore, Rielle dies in a brilliant flash of light, becoming one with the empirium.]] %%stopped here
* BarrierMaiden: The Sun Queen will be the one to save the world from the Blood Queen's reign.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The series ends with Eliana convincing Rielle to permanently finish off Corien. She ends up killing Ludivine in the process, and Remy and future-Eliana disappear since their timeline no longer came to pass. Rielle still dies in a flash of light, but she manages to leave behind a loving letter to her daughter. And with humanities biggest threat gone, the world is a little safer (at least for the time being).]]
* BlessedWithSuck: Rielle can control all seven elements without the need of a casting, a feat no other elemental can achieve. However, it's these exact powers that mark her as one of the prophesied Queens: one Queen will save the world and one will destroy it. Since no one can tell which Queen she is, herself included, she's forced to undergo grueling trials and intense scrutiny of her every move and thought.

* BlowYouAway: Windsingers are people who can manipulate the air.
* BodyguardBetrayal: Instead of helping Eliana and the rest of Red Crown escape, [[spoiler: Simon is actually bringing her to an Empire ship. Most of Red Crown is slaughtered in the ambush and Eliana and Remy are taken as prisoners]].

** The Third Age version of crawlers are creatures who were originally human but were so experimented upon that they became ferocious monsters. All of them still retain some human-like features.
** During ''Kingsbane'', Rielle comes across a severely wounded villager. She tries to heal his burns, the flesh she's attempting to regrow ends up enveloping her hands. By the time Audric snaps her out of her trance, the villager is nothing more than a large puddle of blood and guts.
* BookEnds: The series beings with a prologue titled "An End and a Beginning" which tells of Queen Rielle's death, the end of the elemental age, and the beginning of the newborn princess' life. The series ends with [[spoiler:Queen Rielle's death and an epilogue titled "A Beginning and an End" which shows how the major and supporting characters are fairing in the aftermath of the battle with Corien]].
* BountyHunter: Rozen used to be a bounty hunter for the Undying Empire until an injury forced her to retire. Eliana continued her mother's work in order to support her family and keep them safe. Harkan became one because he didn't want Eliana to work on her own.
* BrokenBird: Eliana was raised by loving parents, but had to watch as the Undying Empire overtook her hometown and- as far she knows- kill her father. She was taught how to be a bounty hunter by her mother, and continues her work after her mother becomes permanently injured. Eliana hates what she does, but can't see any other alternative to both earning money and keeping her family safe under the Empire's reign. Furthermore, her unique healing powers scares her and separates her from those she loves most. In order to keep from being overwhelmed by all of this, she thinks of herself as an unfeeling monster with a mask. It takes becoming friends with the kind but firm Navi and falling in love with Simon before she softens.

* BroughtDownToNormal: Queen Rielle's last blast of magic suppresses everyone's tie to the empirium, rendering each elemental powerless. In Eliana's time, the era of elementals is less fact than myth. [[spoiler: In the new timeline, Rielle does this intentionally, only letting three people keep their powers. Before she dies, Rielle implies that this new status quo won't be permanent.]]

* AbusiveParents: Rielle's father was once a [[GoodParents good parent]] before his wife's (unintentional) death at the hands of Rielle. After this event, he began to treat Rielle incredibly coldly either by not showing her any affection or ignoring her entirely. Throughout her childhood, she was constantly reminded by him that she's a "murderer" and dangerous, as well as bringing her to the lower parts of the castle and forcibly drugging her whenever a storm came through. Rielle believes that he would keep her locked in a room for the rest of her life if he could get away with it, something that her mentor doesn't deny.
* AccidentalTimeTravel: Simon uses his marque magic to create a portal to Borsvall, hoping to hide the newborn princess among the Borsvall people. Queen Rielle's final act of magic ends up changing his spell from jumping space to jumping time, which thrusts both him and the newborn 1,000 years into the future.
* AerithAndBob: Most characters have fantastical names, such as Ludivine, Obritsa, Harkan and Corien. There are also characters who sport names like Simon and Remy.
* AnAesop: Forcing someone to fit into some preconceived notion of what makes the right kind of savior, child, lover, etc. will never end well. Ever since the prophecy stating the rise of the Sun and Blood Queens, people have built up the Sun Queen as this flawless being who epitomizes all things good and pure. Rielle wants to live up to that, but she inherently can't because, well, she's human: she's got flaws and feelings that can be inconvenient to herself and those around her. The more she struggles to fit into the unattainable ideal of the Sun Queen, the worse her mental state becomes. Eliana doesn't even bother trying because she sees herself as a monster, and she chafes at the idea that she's somehow supposed to save everyone from what seems to be an unstoppable threat just because she's the daughter of a legendary couple and has some extraordinary powers.
* AilmentInducedCruelty: The bedridden King of Borsvall treated his son, Ilmaire, horribly, calling him weak and unworthy of the throne. However, considering he was [[spoiler:possessed by an angel]] at the time, its ambiguous how much of his verbal abuse was him and how much of it was from [[spoiler:the angel]].
* AllYourPowersCombined: While the average elemental has access to only one element, the Queens of Prophecy have power over all seven. The Sun Queen is hailed as a heroic figure whereas the Blood Queen is seen as her villainous counterpart.

* AlternativeCalendar: The timeline is split between three eras: the First Age, the Second Age, and the Third Age. Month names, number of days, etc. are the same as real life.
* AmbiguousSituation: [[spoiler:When Rielle defeats Corien, Remy and future-Eliana disappear since their timeline no longer came to pass. The epilogue only focuses on the aftermath of Rielle's decision, leaving it unclear what became of Navi, Harkan, and all the other Third Age characters.]]
* AmplifierArtifact: Eliana forges a casting in the hopes that it'll help her tap into the empirium more easily and thus give her more control over her powers. It doesn't work that well at first, but as she slowly accepts her abilities and practices with them, she begins unable to think of taking it off.
* AnachronicOrder: Each book begins with a prologue that shows what happened to Simon after being separated from the newborn princess. The first book in particular starts with Queen Rielle's last moments before jumping back two years. The rest of Rielle's story shows what she was like before she became the Blood Queen and how that happened. There is a 1,020 year time difference between Rielle and Eliana's plotlines, with most chapters alternating between these two eras.

* AndNowForSomeoneCompletelyDifferent: Starting with ''Kingsbane'', other characters get chapters where they're front and center. This includes Corien, Simon, Navi, Ludivine, Jessamyn, Harkan, Audric, and Taliesin.

* AnotherDimension: Multiple worlds exist beyond the Deep. One in particular- Hosterah- was where the cruciata came from. Eliana glimpses a couple others during her trips into the Deep with the Prophet.
* AntiHero: While she's never bought into the Empire's ideology, Eliana is more willing to aid the Empire than take it down. Much of that has to do with her desire to keep her family safe from the Empire's nonexistent mercy. However, after teaming up with the Wolf, seeing Crown's Hollow, and finding out she's the Sun Queen, she starts to move away from being an anti-hero to a more classic hero.
* AntiHumanAlliance: Angels hate humans due to them claiming land that, they feel, was rightfully theirs. Corien stoked those particular flames until most of his brethren banded together in order to kill them off, starting the Angelic Wars. During Rielle's time, the angels' anger shifted to hating humans because their Saints tricked them into an endless void that stripped them of their physicality.

* ApocalypseHow: The Undying Emperor hopes to bring about a [[ApocalypseHow/Class3A Class 3a]] apocalypse, specifically wiping out all of humanity and restoring the angels to their former glory by stitching their consciousnesses to a human body. It's later suggested that not even other ''worlds'' are safe from him.

* ArrangedMarriage: Royal House Courverie and noble House Sauvillier have planned the marriage of Audric to Ludivine since each of their childhoods. Audric and Ludivine have known each other since birth and are close friends (and cousins), but neither of them are particularly eager to get married: Audric is in love with Rielle and Ludivine doesn't want to come between them. The arrangement eventually breaks down and Audric ends up marrying Rielle.
* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler:Unable to keep herself together anymore, Rielle dies in a brilliant flash of light, becoming one with the empirium.]]
* BarrierMaiden: It's said that the Sun Queen will be the one to save the world from the Blood Queen's reign.

* UnwantedRescue: After the Queen of Celdaria tumbles off a balcony and dies, Rielle manages to resurrect her. Upon being revived, Queen Genoveve weeps, wishing she had been left for dead so she could see her recently deceased husband again. %%stopped here

* WhatTheHellHero: Eliana goes to an angelic commander, wanting to exchange the information she gathered about a nearby Red Crown hangout for her family's safety. The next morning, Red Crown ambushes the facility that Eliana went to, killing every prisoner they can find. Simon informs Eliana that the ambush they originally planned would've been to rescue those very same prisoners, but Red Crown can't let anyone who's seen Eliana live. Simon says all of this while the sound of shotguns go off in the background, forcing her to listen as each prisoner is killed.

* DisneyDeath: Remy gets shot during the fight with the cruciata, resulting in his death. Soon afterword, Eliana manages to bring him back with Simon's assistance.

* HeroicSecondWind:
** In ''Furyborn'', Eliana gets one during the fight with the Empire's crawlers. Exhausted, hungry, and distraught, she starts a raging storm without even realizing that that's what she's doing. The storm takes down most of Empire's fleet and it confirms to Simon that she's the Sun Queen that he's been searching for.
** In ''Kingsbane'', when it becomes apparent that her newly unleashed powers won't come to her willingly, Eliana believes that this trope is the only way she'll be able to use them in an upcoming mission. She tries to invoke this by deliberately depriving herself of food, foregoing sleep, and just generally not taking care of herself. It works, though in a very destructive way. She no longer feels the need to invoke this trope once she grows more used to her powers and how they work.

* IncitingIncident: Rielle fighting off Audric's assassins is what makes her reveal her powers, kicking off her storyline. The disappearance of Eliana's mother is what gets Eliana to team up with the Wolf, which starts hers.

* INeedAFreakingDrink: Ludivine suggests partaking in some celebratory drinks after Rielle successfully completes the first trial. Much later on, Rielle damages the Gate even more and the Obex give Rielle the task of finding the Saint's castings on her own. Ingrid offers up a round of drinks to which Ludivine holds up a hand.

* InstantFanClub: Soon after Ludivine's dramatic entrance during Rielle's anointing, a group calling themselves the House of the Second Sun formed. They're obsessed with Rielle and how she (apparently) brought Ludivine back from the dead. Group activities include reenactments of Ludivine's death, resurrection, and reappearance.

* MirrorCharacter: A lot about Rielle and Eliana mirror one another. Aside from the obvious fact that they're both subjects of a prophecy and share incredible powers, they're also both young woman who have to deal with other people's expectations of how they should use those powers, how they should behave, what their role(s) is/are, etc.

!! This series provides examples of: