Azura Ghost Refresher

The Graven, Book 2 – Azura Ghost – SPOILER Plot Summary

This is a synopsis of the key events and elements in the second book of The Graven trilogy, Azura Ghost, for use as a memory refresher before starting the third and final book, Ethera Grave, and/or as a helpful guide for reviewers trying to recall specific elements from the book. (A glossary is also available here.)

Ten years after the events of Nophek Gloss, Caiden is thirty years old and has spent the past decade alone and on the run to keep the Azura, his starship, out of enemy hands. There’s a bounty on his head, on top of being pursued by Casthen forces controlled by his nemesis, Threi Cetre, who took over the morally questionable Casthen organization that the two of them had temporarily teamed up to overthrow. Caiden stranded Threi in a tiny bubble universe that can only be accessed by using the Azura’s ability to generate a safe universe to bridge inside with. In order to keep Threi locked up in this way—and the multiverse safe from his mad obsessions—Caiden has sacrificed a comfortable life of healing and family for this lonely fugitive existence. His only companion is C, the now juvenile nophek monster that he rescued from Casthen exploitation.

Unbeknownst to Caiden, his childhood friend, Leta, who he thought had been slaughtered with the rest of their homeworld’s population, survived in the past thanks to Threi’s intervention. Threi passed child Leta to his sister, Abriss Cetre, to become part of a special experiment. The candidates underwent genetic conditioning and ethereal treatments to bring them physiologically closer to the what the revered Graven species were in ancient times, existing in deeper connection with the manifestation of reality and the expansion of consciousness. Abriss believes that Graven insight will unlock the last secrets of the multiverse and the nature of being, allowing her to finally completely unify and enlighten her universe, Unity, the central and primordial world in the multiverse, and the former home of the Graven. Leta has spent her childhood stretching toward this ideal, and survived the treatments—while so, so many others died around her—along with six other “Graves” of various species. They became her found family, along with Abriss, who she loves.

Threi has realized that Leta is Caiden’s long lost friend, and makes a deal with Abriss to use Leta as bait. The Azura contains Graven technology, which Abriss desperately wants, and Threi is happy to hand it over after he uses it to unlock his prison. They’ll lure Caiden with the Azura into Unity where Abriss’s gravitas—Graven-born powers of mind and heart control—is insurmountable. Once Caiden is in her presence, he won’t be able to resist obeying her.

Now twenty years old, Leta is able to cast her consciousness from her real body to inhabit a nonphysical dimension of energy and information, called the luminiferity. Her consciousness can also inhabit an organic cyborg body, called a Proxy, built specifically to house her. She makes contact with Caiden remotely using this Proxy. Although her years of conditioning has erased her memories of him, she plays the part and convinces him that she’s alive and her real body is in need of rescue in Unity. Caiden senses a trap but can’t resist this bait: if Leta truly survived and he does nothing, he’ll regret it forever. But he can’t infiltrate Abriss’s home alone, which pushes him to finally reconnect with members of his old found family. Taitn and En race to meet him.

While Leta in-Proxy works alongside Caiden to fake “rescue” herself, memories of their childhood come back, and she grows conflicted about deceiving someone who clearly cares deeply for her and spent years processing the painful loss of her in his life. Though her heart wavers, she still allows the trap to spring. Caiden and the Azura are captured. Leta returns to Abriss’s coercion and to her six siblings—they’re more of a family to her than Caiden, after all.

Caiden, heart-sore from the betrayal, has an audience with Abriss and attempts to convince her that Threi is lying to her: her brother has been obsessed with murdering her for decades, orchestrating the Casthen coup solely to gain power toward that ultimate end of ridding the multiverse of the threat of Abriss and the Dynast. Caiden himself is not convinced of Abriss’s malevolence—she seems devoted to harmony and to serving her people—but whether Abriss and Threi join forces or Threi kills her, both outcomes are bad. Abriss, however, believes that Threi is no threat due to her Graven power being stronger than his. She can bend his will if they were ever in the same space. She’s also eager to reunite with him and mend the family wounds that have kept them apart since they were young.

Caiden is imprisoned. The Azura is seized and—after Abriss makes her study of it—scheduled to be sent off to Threi to release him from the universe he’s trapped in. Caiden has lost everything by believing Leta and needing salvation so badly. Leta grapples with more resurfacing memories and with her loyalty to Abriss and a growing feeling of wrongdoing. She knows Caiden did nothing to deserve this. Leta commits one more wrong to right this one: she invades a sibling’s Proxy in order to release Caiden. He reclaims the Azura and makes his getaway, only to be conflicted himself…Leta is alive, her heart has been coerced by Abriss’s gravitas, and she does need rescuing for real. Instead of jetting toward freedom and family, he heads back to the enemy stronghold to save her once and for all.

Caiden has one clincher to pull this off: he must first enhance his own Graven rank to have a fighting chance against Abriss’s gravitas and be able to resist her swaying his will. He consumes a vial of Graven “enhancer” that he’d once stolen from Threi. He has no idea what it’s made of, but it temporarily amplifies the Graven part of him that he still loathes. His genetic origin remains a mystery, and this enhancement feels like something foreign growing to outsize him, with its own memories bubbling up…including vague memories of Azura from some other time far, far in the past. Caiden endures this confusion in order to confront Abriss.

Abriss has foreseen Caiden’s return and is waiting along with Leta. As Caiden tries to talk Leta into choosing him and escaping, he realizes that Abriss is using Leta as bait once again, this time to have a bubble universe—the Azura’s universe—on which to test a device she reverse-engineered from the Azura’s own energies. This wearable tech, called “Aurasever,” allows Abriss to pop a bubble universe entirely, merging that universe’s interior space into the surrounding universe and converting its physical laws to match. Anything that was within the popped universe gets converted or destroyed.

Abriss succeeds in popping the Azura’s generated universe, but unexpectedly this also tears the entire ship apart in the translation of space, and shatters the Graven chrysalis inside it. Caiden plummets with the wreckage of the Azura. He survives the fall, but losing his precious ship feels worse than death. Leta is spirited away with Abriss and the other six Graves in their Proxies on a ship headed toward Threi out in the multiverse. The Aurasever could easily pop the universe prison that Threi is inside. Once released, he’ll kill Abriss and have total freedom and control of both of the most powerful factions in existence. Abriss is so blinded by her desire to reunite and reconcile with her brother—the closest thing she’ll ever have to an equal—that she can’t see the threat ahead of her.

Caiden’s family crew comes to retrieve him, and as they escape the planet together, something strange overcomes the ship, infiltrating its construction and altering it, enlivening it. This is Azura: she wasn’t a starship that was a destroyed, but a swarm of fragmented spirits of some kind, a purely Graven will, released when the chrysalis within the ship ruptured. Azura is a nonphysical entity able to possess any vehicle or digital system, and still responds to Caiden’s presence and thoughts. Her level of sentience is still under speculation, but she follows him around as a windy thing of pressures and electricity and distortions of physics, and can interact with his physical body in ways she couldn’t before via the ship.

Caiden is relieved to have not lost her, but is dismayed to find that the Graven enhancer he consumed was not temporary as he assumed, but is permanent on him due to some mystery of his genetics. He hates that it distances him from his humanity, but can’t fault its usefulness because it means he’s exactly as Graven as Threi, now, and cannot be coerced by the man. He’s empowered to beat Abriss to the Casthen Harvest and stop Threi from being released.

Abriss and the Graves’ journey to the Casthen headquarters is their first time outside of Unity. For the Graves, the change in physics between different universes is disorienting but sometimes an improvement on their naturally difficult functioning. Feelings of dissension against Abriss start to evolve, and Leta can’t help but find some truth in them. Abriss had promised that getting the Azura’s energies to study would be the piece that solves the final problem with the Graves’ spiritual and physical disintegration. That solution was short-lived. Abriss promises the fix they need is now the Graven treasure her brother has secreted away in the Casthen Harvest. But Abriss is promises upon promises, and half of the Graves question whether she has any answers at all or if they will die off like the previous Graves as Abriss keeps chasing the final piece of her puzzle.

Caiden arrives at the Casthen Harvest and infiltrates in with Azura infesting the facility security to open doors and erase his presence—but he’s too late. Abriss has already reached the universe containing her brother. She pops it to release him, then their tender and tense reunion proves how much more powerful her Graven will is than his. He is easily controlled by her gravitas, but Abriss gives him leeway to speak his own thoughts and tells her Proxy guards to stand down: she wishes to set their fraught history aside and rekindle a better relationship. Easier said than done—their goals are mutual but their shared memories have barbs and their opposing ideologies poison every conversation.

Caiden can’t confront the two now, so he changes plans: he heads toward Leta’s real body in Abriss’s docked ship. Rather than rescue her this time, he intends to wake her consciousness in her real body body to pull it away from piloting her other Proxy body at the meeting. He can convince her that Abriss is in danger and Threi needs to be stopped, and let her whisk off back into her Proxy to relay the threat to Abriss. While Caiden races to this new objective, Threi drops all pretense of playing nice with Abriss and makes his move. Threi uses their debate to dig into the dissent brewing among Abriss’s Proxy guards, and convinces half of them to turn to his side. Abriss has brought with her the perfect weapons to kill her with, because the Proxy bodies she designed are immune to gravitas. They can harm her if they wish, and now that Threi has undermined their remaining loyalty, they attack with him. He consumes a Graven enhancer—like the one Caiden had—to temporarily boost his Gravenness and make him equal to his sister and able to resist her control. This is his chance. Abriss defends along with Leta and the four other Proxies who remain loyal.

Caiden reaches Leta’s real body elsewhere, but he wakes her with horrific timing, pulling her consciousness away from her Proxy just as she’s about to deal Threi a killing blow. It goes inert in the battle while she wakes in Caiden’s arms, so panicked and confused she can’t absorb any of his words. She frantically reconnects with her Proxy back at the battle in time to save Abriss’s life and fight Threi off. He’s too injured to follow as they flee, but he managed to steal Abriss’s Aurasever device, the power to shatter universes.

Caiden scoops up Leta’s unconscious real body and rendezvous with Leta in-Proxy with Abriss and two other in-Proxy Graves, forging a tentative alliance so they can all get to safety. Caiden’s family and Abriss with her entourage are going to leave the Casthen planet while Threi struggles to regroup, before he hunts them down on his turf. Caiden decides to stay in order to investigate the enigma of his Graven origin housed deep in this Casthen facility. He’s here anyway, and Azura exists in a form that cannot be stolen from him anymore, so he might as well unravel this final knot. Leta insists on joining him: his Graven origin might be the answer she and the other Graves have needed all along, the missing link that Abriss has been seeking in order to finish their incomplete existences.

Azura is drawn toward the site of Caiden’s progenitor and guides his and Leta’s way through the Casthen megastructure. When they reach it, it’s not what Caiden expected. Not a database of code, not some vials of genetic material. It’s an aquatic garden of life support that sustains chunks of bioluminescent organic matter. These are the remnants of a Graven being that had been discovered on this planet, and its material is a key element in the production of Threi’s temporary Graven enhancer medicines. The enhancer Caiden consumed was permanent because they were amplifying an already innate part of himself rather than providing a missing part as in Threi’s case. Before Caiden can decide what to do with this information, Threi intrudes, having rushed here to get more enhancers made before pursuing Abriss for a second murder attempt.

Threi and Caiden enter a long overdue duel, and are now Graven equals due to Caiden’s enhancement. Gone is the power imbalance of ten years ago. But Threi still has more experience, and Caiden cannot get the upper hand even with Azura’s assistance. Facing defeat, he seizes an opportunity to make his imminent death have more impact: he destroys the material of his Graven progenitor along with him, electrocuting its delicate ecosystem while he drowns. Threi is now robbed of power, faced with a political mess, and still needs a backup plan for enhancers. He leaves Caiden’s dead body in the garden pool.

Leta finds Caiden’s corpse but her mourning is brief because she can see he has a chance to live. His spirit was caught by Azura before it dissolved into the luminiferous plenum. The organic life support garden can revive Caiden’s body, and Leta has the skills necessary to merge his spirit and body back together to resurrect him.

Now they must stop both Threi and Abriss, who are headed in opposite directions. Luckily Leta still has two bodies. She connects to her Proxy, which is universes away with Abriss on a ship heading home toward Unity. Immediately she recognizes that Threi’s betrayal has broken Abriss’s kind heart for good. Abriss is exactly as powerful and dangerous as Threi had warned, and it was that kind heart that was keeping her using her power for the betterment of the worlds. Ironically, Threi’s actions have turned her ambitions in a violent direction just as he feared.

Leta knows she has to stop Abriss now, while Abriss is vulnerable and while Leta is in her Proxy which is gravitas-immune. But years of love and loyalty can’t be overturned in an instant, and Leta still wants to believe the best of Abriss, so she falters in her attempt at murder. Leta is not a murderer. Abriss disables Leta’s Proxy motor function, and all Leta can do is watch as Abriss dons a backup Aurasever device and uses it to pop a massive universe bordering Unity. Unity’s space and physical laws overtake the popped universe’s space, translating everything inside. Destruction on unfathomable, galactic scale. Two of Caiden’s family members are almost killed as the conversion of physical laws sweeps over them.

Abriss now intends to create ultimate unity not through alliances and politics but the direct way: by popping universes bordering hers to continually expand it until the multiverse ceases to exist and everything is one massive world with perfect science and accord. Caiden and Leta are too far away and too powerless to do anything further to stop Abriss, but they can still stop Threi.

Threi has lost the Graven remains that generated his enhancers, his only means of being Gravenly equal to Abriss and able to resist her. Now he heads toward the only other source of the same material in the multiverse, which he’s located buried somewhere deep beneath the crust of the same planet where Caiden and Leta’s home population was once slaughtered by nophek. Hot to get through the planet’s strange and impenetrable crust is a secret he hasn’t been able to crack before, but now he can with the Aurasever technology he stole from Abriss.

Caiden and Leta intercept him at the planet. They battle Threi and his armada, but don’t have the firepower to destroy him, even with Azura taking control of other vessels and Leta taking control of other minds. The pair’s borrowed ship is shot down to the planet where they’re left stranded while Threi pops the universe that this planet lies within. Azura bubbles Caiden and Leta in enough of her own universe to protect them from conversion as the wave of physics translation erupts through the planet.

The planet’s sand melts, its crust dissolves, and its structure transforms, revealing it to be an immense Graven structure on the inside. Somewhere within is the Graven matter or entity that Threi is targeting. He and his Casthen forces heads inside to seek it out, and so does Caiden and Leta. With Azura guiding them, they make it to the thing first. The Graven energy well in the center of this ethereal structure is nothing like the physical Graven remains that had been kept in the Casthen Harvest. Still, it represents one part of a Graven trinity which both Abriss and Threi have been aiming to acquire, and its energies means either Threi or Caiden could potentially become Abriss’s equal and be able to stop her once and for all.

Threi meets Caiden here, and before the two can duel once again, Leta intervenes with rationality. Having seen what Abriss is becoming, and what it will take to stop her now that her heart is broken and her mind is cracked open to Graven whispers from the past, Leta tries to convince these two men that destroying each other because of an old rivalry is not the answer. The only way to move forward, toward their shared goal of preserving the multiverse, is to join forces. Threi was right that Abriss is the multiverse’s biggest threat: she wants Unity to pave over all other worlds, she has the power to do it, and nothing will shake her resolve now. The multiverse needs a union of their own to stop her. If this new Graven energy well, plus Azura, plus Threi or Caiden is the key to becoming as powerful as Abriss and stopping her and her armies…then the solution is not Threi or Caiden. It’s Threi and Caiden.

The three cement an alliance in order to take on this bigger—perhaps insurmountable—foe.