Starside

Aris was a child when a goddess burned her village to ash and left her with nothing but vengeance. As an orphaned blacksmith's apprentice in Stormside, where mortals fight for scraps of magic, she waits for the gates to Starside to open once every fifty years. Through them, fifty challengers chosen in the king's brutal Culling cross the paradise of immortals toward a pool of magic that can heal, grant wealth or extend life. Aris wants none of it. She wants the gods dead. But power lives in great swords that must be claimed, not inherited, and claiming one makes her a target among beasts, immortals and a king's guard she cannot afford to trust.