Raintree: Sanctuary

The book opens in the council of the Ansara clan. The clan's leader, Dranir Judah, announces that an attempt was made on his life in his bedroom before dawn: the warrior Stein attacked, and the woman sharing his bed, Drusilla, tried to drug him. Because Judah had swapped the drinks, the woman fell asleep, and Stein he waited for armed at the secret passage. Both are dead. He tells the council «someone from my own clan wants me dead» but accuses no one by name.

His half-brother Cael speaks carefully: many young warriors under Judah do not want to put off the war with the Raintree clan any longer. Judah says that Pax Greynell, a warrior under Cael's protection, is in North Carolina and is going to attack the Raintree sanctuary. His target is Mercy Raintree: the most powerful empath alive. Judah says «Mercy Raintree is mine, she will die at my hands». The windows shake, balls of fire fall from the ceiling, the marble floor trembles.

Chapter 1 begins on a Sunday at the Raintree sanctuary in North Carolina. In the two-hundred-year-old house the servant and distant relative of the family, Sidonia, prepares breakfast. The Raintree clan settled this land after the «Great War» with the Ansara two hundred years ago, and a protective shield covers the estate. The sanctuary's guardian is Mercy: she lives with her brothers Dante (a casino owner in Reno, the Dranir) and Gideon (a police detective in Wilmington). Her parents were savagely killed seventeen years ago.

Mercy's six-year-old daughter Eve comes to Sidonia: blonde, dark green-eyed, a girl just learning her supernatural powers. She lifts the rolling pin into the air and makes the juice carton fly. «I'm different. I don't look like my mother, or Uncle Dante, or Uncle Gideon,» she says, and adds «I'm more than a Raintree». Sidonia is horrified, because the secret of Eve's birth is known only to her and Mercy and is hidden even from Dante and Gideon.

Mercy meanwhile meditates on the sacred hill of Amadahy Pointe. She has a restlessness today she cannot explain. Seven years ago she surrendered to «the hunger within her» and entered a relationship that changed her whole life; since then she has sworn not to leave the sanctuary. At the same moment Pax Greynell watches her through binoculars: Cael has protected him with a forty-eight-hour invisibility spell and told him to trap Mercy outside the sanctuary.

• The story moves among several points of view: Mercy, Judah, Cael, Sidonia and others; chapters open with time stamps such as «Sunday, 09:15»
• The plot is short and quick, but characters from the earlier books (Dante, Gideon, Lorna, Hope) appear in a few scenes without enough explanation
• The magic system is simple: abilities such as empathy, telepathy, fire, electricity, invisibility and healing are explained in short sentences
• Dialogue between the leads is often built on the rhythm of «we are enemies» and «I want you»
• The tone is at times heavy (war, a suicide attempt, a coerced encounter) and then switches suddenly to little Eve's jokes