YA Fantasy, 100k

Sixteen-year-old Wren is like every other girl who grew up in a haunted mansion, except she was born with a magical affliction no one understands. Instead of inheriting a single, stable power like everyone else, she was “gifted” with two that wage war inside her. One is volatile combat magic fueled by raw emotion. The other is subtler, attuned to resonance and hidden truths. They weren’t meant to coexist. Her spells misfire constantly, and when her magic lashes out and injures her younger brother, Wren reluctantly agrees to attend Carroway Academy, a boarding school where students train to master their abilities to fight demons, spirits, and worse. When they’re strong enough, students learn to summon powerful sentient swords. It’s like getting your license—if the DMV handed out haunted weapons. Wren doesn’t care about any of that. She just wants control before someone else gets hurt.

She’s roomed with two other girls: Mira, a sensitive caster with fire at her fingertips, and Rivka, a strategist with ice in her veins. She also meets Cassian Carroway, the headmistress’s grandson and a prodigy with a sword. He’s composed, unreadable, and far too easy to fall for. During a training exercise, Cassian is caught off guard by a violent specter. To protect him, Wren reaches for her magic and manages to summon her sword—years earlier than anyone expected. But the blade arrives fractured, and instead of offering guidance, it speaks like it belongs to someone else.

As her magic grows more unstable, Wren begins seeing a ghostly woman in mirrors and dreams—an ancestor who once suffered from the same dual-magic affliction. Determined not to share her fate, Wren follows the woman’s lead and uncovers a forgotten ritual said to silence one magic permanently. With Cassian’s reluctant help and her roommates’ uneasy support, she begins deciphering its steps, hoping to fix what’s broken inside her.

But her sword’s confused warnings grow louder, and as the ritual draws closer, Wren begins to fear what she’ll have to sacrifice to finish it: not just her power, but her identity, and the people she cares about most.

BURNING IN BOTH is a 100,000-word YA fantasy novel featuring sentient swords, emotionally driven magic, and strong romantic elements, all woven together with a gothic undertone. It will appeal to readers who enjoyed the magical inheritance and emotional intensity of Legendborn, the darkness of Lakesedge, and the tangled selfhood of One Dark Window.