Forestborn Series by Elayne Audrey Becker

TO BE BORN OF THE FOREST IS A GIFT AND A CURSE. Rora is a shifter, as magical as all those born in the wilderness--and as feared. She uses her abilities to spy for the king, traveling under different guises and listening for signs of trouble. When a magical illness surfaces across the kingdom, Rora uncovers a devastating truth: Finley, the young prince and her best friend, has caught it, too... moreTO BE BORN OF THE FOREST IS A GIFT AND A CURSE. Rora is a shifter, as magical as all those born in the wilderness--and as feared. She uses her abilities to spy for the king, traveling under different guises and listening for signs of trouble. When a magical illness surfaces across the kingdom, Rora uncovers a devastating truth: Finley, the young prince and her best friend, has caught it, too. His only hope is stardust, the rarest of magical elements, found deep in the wilderness where Rora grew up--and to which she swore never to return. But for her only friend, Rora will face her past and brave the dark, magical wood, journeying with her brother and the obstinate, older prince who insists on coming. Together, they must survive sentient forests and creatures unknown, battling an ever-changing landscape while escaping human pursuers who want them dead. With illness gripping the kingdom and war on the horizon, Finley's is not the only life that hangs in the balance. less

Wildbound is the thrilling finale to Elayne Audrey Becker's epic fantasy saga of forest magic and a kingdom on the brink of war. With the assassination of Telyan’s king, the time for peace has passed. Determined to make up for his failure to procure the stardust, Helos finds work as a healer at Fendolyn’s Keep, the historic garrison to which Telyan’s exiled royals―and half its civilians―have fled... moreWildbound is the thrilling finale to Elayne Audrey Becker's epic fantasy saga of forest magic and a kingdom on the brink of war. With the assassination of Telyan’s king, the time for peace has passed. Determined to make up for his failure to procure the stardust, Helos finds work as a healer at Fendolyn’s Keep, the historic garrison to which Telyan’s exiled royals―and half its civilians―have fled. Racing against the Fallow Throes’ ticking clock, he endeavors to repair his relationship with Prince Finley and dreams of his claim to a faraway throne, as the base around him prepares for war. Half a continent away, his sister Rora is doing everything she can to reawaken the land and end Eradain’s slaughter of magical beings. Still reeling from the revelation that Eradain’s violent monarch is her half-brother, she journeys to the kingdom determined to infiltrate his court in disguise―and finds the seeds of rebellion are already stirring. With a magical illness running rampant and the continent arming for battle, the three realms’ long-feared destruction seems inevitable. But the two shifters they believed would bring about Alemara’s ruin may in fact hold the key to its survival. less