Four trials survived. One left to break her.
- Release date: December 15, 2026
- Series: Richmond Academy, Book 5 of 5 (the finale)
- Author: W.M. Dawson
- Genre: YA fantasy, magic school
- 🌶️ Spice: 0.5–1, kissing, holding, and yearning
About the book
Shayla Montgomery has bound water, earth, fire, and air—and paid for every single one. She’s the only guardian phoenix in a century to make it this far. But the fifth trial isn’t waiting for her to be ready.
Beneath Richmond Academy’s Ritual Hall lies a chamber no guardian has ever returned from whole: the Spirit Anchor, the hidden seventh point in an ancient boundary that has kept the mortal world sealed from something far worse for three hundred years. It’s failing. And every phoenix who has ever tried to hold it alone has burned out trying.
Shayla isn’t alone. That’s the problem.
Georgios Thalassinos has spent the whole year standing beside her—steady, quiet, closer than he ever meant to get. Now she’s learning exactly why he was placed at Richmond in the first place, and what it will cost the two of them to finish what generations of guardians couldn’t. Meanwhile, the man the Council calls the most dangerous fugitive in a decade is racing toward the same chamber—and he might be the only one who understands what’s actually coming.
With her father’s ultimatum hanging over her, her friends refusing to let her walk into the dark without them, and a boundary older than her family’s entire bloodline about to fall, Shayla has one choice left: keep pretending she can carry this alone, or finally let the people who love her prove that she doesn’t have to.
The Richmond Academy series comes to its end in Trial by Spirit—where the last trial was never about power at all. It was about who’s standing beside you when the world finally asks everything of you at once.
You’ll love this if you like
Series finales that pay off the slow burn · found family who won’t let you go it alone · elemental magic · ancient secrets under the school · a heroine who finally stops carrying everything herself
Content notes
Emotionally controlling parent · peril and violence · mild language · YA. See all content notes.
Catch up before December 15
There’s still time to binge the series. Trial by Fire, Trial by Sea, Trial by Earth, and Trial by Wind are all out now and in Kindle Unlimited.
