The Wretched Divine by Adalyn Grace

Here is a summary with spoilers for The Wretched Divine by Adalyn Grace

Aurelie Chantelune grows up in Rhovar, a kingdom at war with demons, where knights earn the right to form soulbonds with angels by killing demons. Six years before the main story, Aurelie’s mother, Myrah, is killed by Gluttony, one of the Original Sins, while trying to protect Aurelie and her brother, Orion, in the royal archives. Orion disappears, and Aurelie grows up believing he is dead. Her father, Varen Chantelune, is a respected captain of the king’s guard, and Aurelie dedicates herself to becoming a knight capable of protecting her kingdom. When a demon attack threatens Rhovar, she pursues an envyborn demon named Lute into the forest. Aurelie defeats Lute but discovers that the demon is soulbound to a human, meaning killing Lute would also kill her bonded partner. Aurelie spares her and cuts off her tail to present as proof of a kill. She lies to her father and King Edric, allowing her to proceed with the angelic bonding ceremony despite never having killed a demon.

At the bonding ceremony, Aurelie is paired with Yuriel, a Soldier angel from Sanctuary. The ceremony is interrupted when Varen suddenly transforms into a hybrid demon, growing black wings and developing monstrous features. He attacks Princess Ilaria Noriclat, scars her face, and injures several people, including Nicolas Beaumont, whose sword hand is severed. Varen is restrained and imprisoned. Aurelie refuses to accept that her father has become the enemy she was raised to fight, and she searches for an explanation. In the royal archives, she encounters Severin Sinclair, a scholar and wine merchant who reveals that he is actually a demon lord. Severin takes Aurelie to Veritas, a hidden village where demons live outside the kingdom’s control. He explains that Varen’s transformation was caused by a special wine he created rather than by the ordinary process of succumbing to demonic sin. Severin claims to be developing a cure that can reverse the transformation and restore demons to their human forms. To complete it, he needs angel blood and access to the severed wings of Fallen Angels. Yuriel follows Aurelie through their soulbond, bringing the three together in an uneasy alliance.

Aurelie, Yuriel, Severin, and Vexara, a rare white vesper, travel toward an ancient barrier where the remains of Fallen Angels are guarded. During their journey, they are attacked by Kieran, a prideborn demon lord who captures Yuriel and imprisons him in a ruined church. Kieran pins Yuriel’s wings and wrists to an altar to drain his gilded blood. Aurelie and Severin infiltrate the church to rescue him. During the confrontation, Aurelie admits to Yuriel that she lied about killing a demon to qualify for their bond. Despite the deception, Yuriel channels his celestial Glory through her weapon, enabling her to kill Kieran. Severin then reveals his true identity and form: he is Wrath, one of the Original Sins, and far more powerful than his human appearance suggests. Historical interludes reveal that Severin was once Sabriel, an angel who served alongside Yuriel in Sanctuary. Sabriel fell in love with a mortal woman, violating the rules governing angels. Yuriel reported the relationship to Commander Xadriel, who ordered the woman’s execution and forced Yuriel to cut off Sabriel’s wings. Sabriel survived as a Fallen Angel, and his suffering eventually transformed him into Wrath. His resentment toward Yuriel stems from this betrayal and the loss of his former life.

Severin obtains the Fallen Angel wings and completes his experimental cure, but he has a larger plan that he has concealed from Aurelie and Yuriel. Through his wine guild, Vinum Vita Miraculum, he has distributed the catalytic wine throughout Rhovar. Anyone who drinks it can transform into a hybrid demon. Severin intends to use the transformation and its reversal to challenge the angels’ authority and expose the cruelty of their system. Meanwhile, the kingdom faces a political crisis as King Edric arranges a forced marriage between Princess Ilaria and Prince Asterion of Frienen. Ilaria has secretly been involved with Lute, the envyborn demon Aurelie spared. Ilaria has also studied the demons and their history, believing that a truce could be preferable to continued warfare, but her proposal is rejected. Her marriage becomes part of the political struggle surrounding Rhovar’s survival. Aurelie’s own loyalties are increasingly divided between the kingdom and its religious authorities, Yuriel and the angelic hierarchy, and Severin, whose methods are dangerous but whose explanation of demonic transformation challenges everything she has been taught.

The conflict reaches its climax at Ilaria’s wedding feast. Severin exposes the wine plot as King Edric prepares to make a toast. Edric has already drunk the wine and begins transforming into a hybrid demon. An angel kills him with a gilded arrow through the head. Queen Sybil also transforms after drinking from the same chalice, and other members of the nobility are affected by the distributed wine. Yuriel arrives with Varen, who is still chained and transformed. They administer Severin’s cure, and Varen returns to his human form as his demonic features disappear. However, the cure’s success does not prevent a larger confrontation. Commander Xadriel and an army of Soldier angels descend on Rhovar to purge the transformed population. Aurelie realizes that the angels intend to kill the people who have become demons, regardless of whether those people were transformed against their will. She refuses to let them slaughter her kingdom.

During the battle, Aurelie takes up her mother’s lyre and channels Severin’s wrath-based magic through music. She uses the music to command people who have not drunk the wine to join the fight, while others willingly drink it and transform so they can resist the angel army. Varen, Azriel, Marcel, and other defenders join the resistance. Yuriel turns against Xadriel and fights alongside Aurelie and Severin rather than obeying the order to destroy the transformed citizens. Xadriel wounds Severin, but Azriel uses his healing power to help save him. Varen attacks Xadriel, damaging one of his wings, while Azriel shoots him in the chest. Xadriel sees that his own blood has become tarnished and orders the angels to retreat. The battle leaves King Edric dead, Queen Sybil and numerous nobles transformed, and Rhovar’s political and religious order shattered. Varen survives as a human, while Aurelie, Yuriel, and Severin remain connected through their bonds despite their conflicting loyalties. However, Aurelie has paid a physical price for using Severin’s power: after the battle, she collapses, and a horn begins growing at her temple, indicating that her own transformation is taking hold. Her ultimate condition remains unresolved.

In the epilogue, the focus shifts to Ilaria and Prince Asterion. Asterion carries Ilaria aboard a ship bound for Frienen while she demands that he remove his illusions and reveal his identity. Vexara appears and reports that demons have been experimenting with angel blood and that Asterion’s sister is still alive. Asterion then drops his disguise and reveals himself to be Orion Chantelune, Aurelie’s supposedly dead brother. Orion addresses Ilaria directly, revealing that he is alive and that their shared past is far more complicated than she believed. His identity connects the political marriage, the experiments involving angel blood, and the secrets surrounding the war to Aurelie’s family history.