The Fate of Ten recap

The invasion has begun. Mogadorian warships hold position over New York and other cities, and Setrakus Ra presents the occupation to humanity as an arrangement rather than a conquest. John, Sam, Sarah, Nine, and Malcolm fight through a wrecked Manhattan alongside whatever human survivors and soldiers they can join with; Sam finds he can now reach machines the way other Garde reach fire or weather. In Mexico, Six, Marina, and Adam fight their way to the Loric sanctuary Malcolm remembered and get inside, where they meet a surviving Loric presence. What it does is release Legacies into ordinary human beings across the world, creating a generation of human Garde overnight. Ella, still held aboard Setrakus Ra's ship, keeps refusing the inheritance he offers her while it drains her. The cost in New York is high, and Sarah Hart is killed in the fighting, with John holding Number Five responsible. The book ends with humanity in the war for real and the Garde no longer alone in it.

Nine Loric children were sent to Earth with guardians called Cepans after the Mogadorians destroyed Lorien. Numbers One, Two, and Three were killed first, and every Cepan is now dead, including Henri, who raised Number Four, John Smith. The survivors gathered one by one: Six, Seven (Marina), Eight, Nine, and Ten (Ella, who came on a second ship), along with John's human friend Sam Goode, Sam's father Malcolm, Sarah Hart, and the Chimaera Bernie Kosar. Number Five was found last and betrayed them, killing Number Eight, and Marina took one of his eyes with a new Legacy of lethal cold. Setrakus Ra, the Mogadorian leader, captured Ella and told her she is his granddaughter and intended heir. A Mogadorian named Adam, who carries the memories of Number One and a Legacy taken with them, defected and helped the Garde destroy Ashwood Estates, a Mogadorian settlement hidden in Virginia, exposing a plan to approach the world's governments openly. Setrakus Ra did exactly that, and then his warships decloaked over New York and other cities. Five Garde remain and one of them fights for the enemy.

The invasion is under way. Mogadorian warships hold position over New York and other cities, ground forces move in the open, and the world's militaries are outmatched from the first hour. John, Sam, Sarah, Nine, and Malcolm are caught in Manhattan and fight through streets full of civilians with no plan beyond staying alive and doing damage. In Mexico, Six, Marina, and Adam are still trying to reach the Loric sanctuary Malcolm Goode remembered, and the invasion has turned their errand into the only strategy anybody has left. Ella remains aboard Setrakus Ra's ship, close to him, refusing what he wants from her. Setrakus Ra's public position is that this is an arrangement offered to humanity rather than a conquest, and enough of the world's leadership is frightened enough to consider it.

In New York the Garde stop retreating and start organising, joining up with human survivors and with what remains of the military response, in a city being taken apart around them. Sam Goode, the one person in the group who has never had a Legacy, discovers he can now reach machines directly, which makes him useful in a way nobody expected and which raises a question nobody has time to ask about why it is happening at all. Number Five is fighting on the Mogadorian side and the Garde encounter what he has become. In Mexico, Six's party is close to the sanctuary and finds it garrisoned, because the Mogadorians have been looking for the same thing and have got there first.

Six, Marina, and Adam fight their way through the Mogadorian force holding the sanctuary and get inside. What is under it is Loric, older than the ships that brought the children, and it is not a weapon in any form they can use directly. In New York the situation degrades: holding ground against warships is not possible, and the group's fighting turns into raids, rescues, and retreats through the ruins. The losses among the humans fighting alongside them mount. Ella, aboard the ship, is being worn down by proximity to Setrakus Ra, and the contact between them is no longer something she can simply refuse.

The sanctuary opens to the Garde and a surviving Loric presence within it acts. Rather than arming the five remaining Garde, it releases Legacies into ordinary human beings across the world: teenagers on every continent begin manifesting powers with no idea what has happened to them. In one stroke the Mogadorians stop facing a handful of fugitives and start facing a planet that can fight back on their terms, which also explains what has been happening to Sam. In New York the battle continues without any of that being known yet, and it goes badly. The Garde there are fighting Mogadorian ground forces, air support, and Number Five, who knows how they think.

The fighting in New York costs John everything he had left to lose there: Sarah Hart is killed in the battle, and John holds Number Five responsible for her death. Whatever restraint John had about how this war ends does not survive it. In Mexico the consequence of the sanctuary runs ahead of the Garde: human beings around the world are waking up with Legacies, and the war becomes humanity's rather than a secret hunt for Loric survivors. Setrakus Ra's occupation is established in cities across the planet and Ella is still aboard his ship, refusing him. By the close the Garde are moving to join with human forces and with the new human Garde for a counterattack, no longer a handful of children being picked off one by one, but an army with numbers it did not have and no time to train them.

The two halves of the book resolve in opposite directions. In Mexico, Six, Marina, and Adam get into the Loric sanctuary and find a surviving Loric presence inside it, and what comes out of that meeting changes the war: Legacies begin appearing in ordinary human beings around the world, so that for the first time the Garde are not the only people on Earth who can fight the Mogadorians on their own terms. In New York the fighting goes the other way. The Garde hold and hit back but the city is being taken apart, and Sarah Hart is killed in the battle. John holds Number Five responsible and comes out of it with a hatred that is now personal as well as strategic. Ella is still aboard Setrakus Ra's ship, refusing what he wants from her while it wears her down. By the close the Mogadorians hold ground openly in cities across the planet, humanity knows exactly what it is facing, new human Garde are manifesting powers they do not understand, and the surviving Loric are moving to join up with human forces for a counterattack instead of fighting as a handful of fugitives.