Wild Magic

Wild Magic is a fantasy novel by the American writer Tamora Pierce, the first of the four books of The Immortals.

Veralidaine Sarrasri, known as Daine, is thirteen when the story begins. Her family was killed earlier in the year by raiders, she has taken her revenge on them, and she has left home to find somewhere else to live. What she can do is talk to animals, and they listen to her, which she tries to keep quiet because she does not know how it would be received. The talent gets her work helping the royal horsemistress drive a herd of ponies to Tortall, where she is taken on as an assistant. Learning to trust people again is harder for her than handling animals, and it is the part of the book she has to work through. The novel is set in the same world as the author's earlier series about Alanna. The journey to Corus is broken by attacks from Immortals, the monstrous beings that were supposed to have been locked away years before: spidrens, which are spiders with human heads, and Stormwings, which are metallic birds with human faces. Numair Salmalin, the most powerful mage in Tortall, becomes her teacher.