One fractured universe is being approached from opposite ends of its history. Steven J. Morris’s Fractured Arcana brings together the ancient consequences of a world built around magic and a modern Earth forced to confront that magic when the boundary between worlds breaks open. Mother of Trees begins with Elliah, an elf whose complete lack of magic makes her an impossibility in her own society, while The Guardian of the Palace follows former Special Forces veteran Red Hernandez as the impossible arrives in Manhattan. Together, the two series offer different entry points into the same larger conflict—and both begin with protagonists whose worlds have already decided what they should be before events force them to decide for themselves.
an ancient war that forged magic,
and the modern invasion that it made possible.
Mother of Trees
Thaumatropic Roots Book 1
Part of the Fractured Arcana Universe
by Steven J. Morris
Genre: Epic Fantasy
A dying goddess. A fractured prophecy. A magicless elf who shouldn't exist.
Elliah has spent her entire life being told what she is—bereft, wrong, a mistake the world would prefer to correct. Drifting from town to town with a mother who won't explain why they keep running, she has no magic, no place, and no future. Then a single misstep draws the attention of those who've been looking for her, and everything her mother was hiding comes apart.
She isn't ready for what she learns. But ready was never an option.
Mother of Trees is the thrilling first book in the Thaumatropic Roots epic fantasy series. Enter a world of dangerous magic, ancient powers, and one impossible girl who refuses to stay down.
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The most interesting tension in Mother of Trees begins before Elliah learns why anyone is searching for her. Magic is ordinary in her world, yet she possesses none, making her difference visible every day and giving the word “Bereft” social weight long before the larger prophecy enters the story. That makes the fantasy conflict personal: the same world whose rules exclude her may also depend on what makes her impossible.
The wider Fractured Arcana concept adds another layer. Elliah’s story belongs to the ancient side of a shared universe whose consequences eventually reach modern Earth, so details about magic, history, and conflict here are not isolated world-building. They form part of the foundation for the separate Guardian League series and its very different confrontation with the same fractured reality.
Elliah ~ 1
My mother told me many times that all adolescents feel like they don't belong, but… I really didn't. So I spent my free time away from other elves, on my own but for the animals… they didn't understand how broken I was. And I was quite pleased with my current find, so I snarled when a noise behind me scared away the drakeling that had settled in my hands. Black with a pattern of red scales along its spine, its body the thickness of my finger, it took flight with a flurry of thin leathery wings and disappeared behind a massive brown trunk.
"The real ones are much more intimidating," said an unfamiliar voice.
Time slowed as I tensed to run, shocked that I'd let my guard down so much that anyone had gotten that close. How many lurked behind me? On the outskirts of town, in the thick of the woods near the river, I had expected solitude.
"Stay, Bereft. I am not afraid," said the voice. His words provoked me.
"No one's afraid of me," I blurted. Bitterness stained my words as surely as the pollen of the bloodcups had stained my ragged clothes.
I turned away from the vanished drakeling to focus on the intruder who'd scared it away. A man. No, I corrected myself, someone my age. Someone not quite old enough for adults to consider one of their own, but too old to call a child.
But not Bereft. No other elf shared that with me.
The newcomer was slightly taller than me with a thin frame, his light hair hanging long, wild, and tangled. He was new to the village—I would have noticed an elf with skin so light. I'd heard whispers of him at school. Kethryllia had called him Salt-kissed, and I'd wondered what that meant, but his light skin answered that question. He'd undoubtedly caught whispers about me, heard of my… condition. Bereft. Yet at that moment, I thought only of the hours of coaxing I'd spent to draw the little drakeling into my grasp, and that the stupid elf had scared it away. I wanted to punch him.
"Maybe they should be," he said, taking a step back, though it would have taken me two leaps to get to him, and he'd have me pinned in one, if he had any skill with magic at all. But I'd prepared a leap already, only not in his direction. As I sprung away, he continued, raising his voice, "And you're right, they're not afraid of you."
I landed with a tree between us. His magic wouldn't be able to snag me there. Unless he was very good at it.
"They're afraid of what you represent."
Continue the Thaumatropic Roots Series
Magic is as natural as breathing in Elliah's world — except to her. Born without a single spark in a war that runs on it, she has nothing but her will and her refusal to accept the limits everyone else has already decided for her. This is what happens when the world writes you out of the story, and you refuse to leave.
Get them All:
Mother of Trees
Bones of Cenaedth
Secrets of Deara
Shepherds of Truth
The Guardian of the Palace
The Guardian League Book 1
Part of the Fractured Arcana Universe
by Steven J. Morris
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Magic isn’t real.
Red Hernandez is very sure of that.
She wants a quiet life after Special Forces—just a steady security job at a half-finished Manhattan skyscraper.
But then a sister tower implodes in a way physics can’t explain.
Witnesses report creatures in the smoke.
And something hunts her in the tunnels beneath.
Red wants answers. What she gets instead is an elf with a sword, a troll with a wry sense of humor, and a dwarf who believes every battle requires an audience. They insist an ancient enemy has crossed into our world—and Red becomes an accidental gatekeeper simply because she’s standing on the fault line when it cracks open.
As a hidden war erupts in the shadows of New York City, Red must decide: run from the past that nearly destroyed her… or fight for a world she’s only just beginning to believe in.
A veteran with nothing left to lose.
A threat born of magic and shadow.
A team she never saw coming.
The Guardian of the Palace launches the action-packed Guardian League series—perfect for fans of urban fantasy, modern-world magic, found family, and heroines who refuse to back down.
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Chapter 1
Red - Day 20, Sunday, the day after the attack
"Ms. Hernandez?" a muffled voice called from a distance, accompanied by a gentle rapping on a door. My consciousness registered the interruption as a nuisance and pulled me back under.
What seemed like seconds later, the rapping came again, more insistent. "Ms. Hernandez."
Ms. Hernandez was my mom… why were they bothering me?
Then a scraping sound, and an alarmed voice. "Ms. Hernandez! Are you okay?"
Some scrambling, some grunts, more scraping… I was going to have to wake up. Why couldn't they just let me sleep?
I tried to answer, but my throat was dry and nothing came out. Coughing, I attempted to sit up, not wholly returned from my trip to dreamland. "I'm here. I'm okay." Was I though? I wasn't sure.
I was in my flat. Not the desert. My door was partway open, and a slightly overweight man had paused in the act of pushing his way in. I recognized him, but his name escaped me. Swinging my legs off my cot, I did a quick modesty check. I was fully dressed, though rather tragically, in some semblance of civilian fatigues—muddied, disheveled, and a little bloody.
The reason came screaming back to me. There had been creatures, unearthly monsters, in The Palace. They'd done things I could not explain by any of the rules I knew. And they'd beaten the hell out of me and then patched me back up in a matter of seconds. I'd blown the head clean off of one of them and fled the scene.
Not my smartest move.
Continue The Guardian League Series!
Earth, through its technological advances, supports nearly eight billion souls; from a cosmic perspective, that makes it ripe for the picking. 'Red' Hernandez, trying to put a questionable military life behind her, finds herself caught in the middle of stopping an apocalyptic invasion of Earth. But to do that, she has to figure out who the good guys are, and how she can combat forces in which she does not believe.
Get them All:
The Guardian of the Palace
Stars in the Sand
We’re Going On An Elf Hunt
The Song Unsung
Get the Box Set Here
The Fractured Arcana setup gives readers two distinctly different doors into its larger mythology. Mother of Trees fits those who enjoy epic fantasy built around social exclusion, dangerous inherited powers, prophecy, and a heroine whose lack of magic is more consequential than anyone initially understands. The Guardian of the Palace shifts that mythology into contemporary New York, where military experience and practical skepticism collide with elves, trolls, dwarves, portals, and a threat that refuses to obey familiar rules.
The strongest crossover appeal is for readers who enjoy seeing one fantasy universe examined across different eras and styles. One series asks what it means to be born outside the magical order that defines your world; the other asks what happens when a modern woman trained to trust evidence discovers that the impossible is already at war around her.
Steven J. Morris writes fantasy where magic runs deep and the consequences run deeper. By day he's an engineer and father of three in Austin, Texas. He's the author of eight novels across two completed series — the epic Thaumatropic Roots and the urban Guardian League — both set in the shared Fractured Arcana universe.
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Start Thaumatropic Roots
Mother of Trees — Amazon
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The Guardian of the Palace — Amazon
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Fractured Arcana is built around a connection that becomes more interesting because Morris does not tell it from a single perspective. Elliah grows up inside a magical world that labels her deficient because she cannot participate in its most basic power; Red begins in a technological world where accepting magic at all requires her to abandon the rules she trusts. Putting those two beginnings beside one another turns the shared universe into more than a crossover device. Each series tests what its protagonist believes reality allows—and what happens when the answer changes.
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