Alt history fantasy based around the Empire (China) and it's conflict with the Federation (Japan) in the early 19th century. The west has basic guns and zeplins while Empire/Federation are still using swords, bows, and cannons. Federation has a much more advanced military than the Empire, and has invaded multiple times over the last few decades.
The story starts with Rin as an orphan trying and then succeeding in getting into the prestigeous military academy. When she gets there she is behind due to being raised poor while most of the other students were rich and well educated. As time goes on she gets better and better, and eventually rivals the best in the school. At one point she starts learning from Jiang how to summon a god, with some success. She has a school rivalry with Nezha and a close friendship with Kitay.
The Federation invades and makes a dash for Singegard where the military academy is located. In the resulting battle Rin stops the enemy by summoning fire. As a result, Rin is assigned to the Cike with others like her. She starts to learn under another Speerly named Altan how to control the fire. After fighting for a while, the Cike see the new wartime capital of Golyn Niis completly destroyed with all of the citizens brutally murdered. Altan decides to release the other Cike who had gone mad, but changes his mind after freeing the wind god who is still crazy and starts terrorizing the country side. As they leave the prison they are captured by the Federation. As they escape Rin goes to the island of Speerly and summons the Pheonix to completely destroy the Federation's island, ending the war.
In the aftermath of the war, the Cike are declared outlaws and Rin becomes convinced that the Empress had sold them out. Rin starts working with the dragon warlord to start a civil war. Nezha is the warlord's son, and they start to become friends. In an assination attempt, Rin is cursed by the Empresses poison so she can't summon fire anymore. Once the civil war really starts, Rin sails with the invading fleet as they conquer the northern Empire. As they reach the Empresses's capital, they end up being defeated with the help of the freed wind god. Rin and Kitay barely survive, and end up being taught how to bond so that Rin can summon fire through Kitay. When Rin gets back to the Dragon stronghold, they prepare for the Imperial fleet's arrival. They barely beat back the invaders, kill the wind god, and break the Empire's power. The Hesperians hate shamans and agree to work with the new Republic if they kill Rin, and Nezha agrees and tries to kill Rin. Rin barely escapes but the rest of the Cike are killed in the process.
After scaping, Rin flees south and starts fighting with the southern provinces who didn't want to be part of the new Republic and were still dealing with Federation invaders who never left after their homeland was destroyed. Rin starts defeating the Federation soldiers in large pitched battles, but start getting destroyed when the Republic and their new Hesperian allies arrive with Zeplins. Rin finds the old Empress who is still alive, and wants to team up to fight off the Hesperian's again. The empress convinces Rin to release the old Emperor from his seal to help fight. When they do that Rin quickly realizes he is insane and the Empress, Emporer, and Jiang all die fighting off the Hesperian fleet.
Rin quickly gathers together the southern army after destroying most of the Republic's fleet, and attacks the new Republic's capital. Nezha has gotten extremely powerful at controlling the water, and is able to beat back Rin easily. Rin ends up trying to destroy the dragon which is the source of Nezha's power, isn't successful, but is able to capture the capital and drive Nezha out. In the months after she starts to go crazy trying to run the local government. She ends up meeting with Nezha about a peace agreement between the two sides. She starts to go crazy and kill everyone, finally stops when she realizes she is killing Kitay. In the end she lets Nezha kill her so that he can finally win the Hesperian alliance and end the civil war that has killed millions on citizens.
This series started off pretty good, and was even decently good through the end of the first book. As the second and third books went on, Rin became angrier and just evil. At first she had decent justifications for killing people, but as the series went on she just killed anyone she felt like. By the end you don't agree with anything she does, everything is famine and destruction, and is generally depressing. Don't read unless you seriously enjoy pain and suffering. I couldn't stop reading so it was definitely well written, but just too depressing to recommend anyone else reading it.