Dark Ascension (Hafsah Faizal) Books in Order

Faizal's Dark Ascension page centers on The Wishless Ones, her entry in a broader line of young adult villain origin stories. This book goes back before Jafar becomes Agrabah's royal vizier and asks a simpler question first: what did he want when he was still just a boy trying to survive. The answer is not power alone. It is protection, escape, knowledge, and a future he can control.

That makes the story darker than a straight adventure, but also sadder.

The heart of the book is Jafar's relationship with his younger brother, Rohan. Jafar is the harder, sharper one, always searching for the angle that will keep them safe or move them upward. Rohan is softer and more open, which makes him both Jafar's greatest weakness and the person he most wants to protect. Their bond gives the story its tension, because every step toward ambition can also become a step away from each other.

The setting does a lot of work. After a fire destroys what is left of their home life, the brothers head toward Maghriz and its elite House of Wisdom, where Jafar hopes alchemy and learning might offer a way out. Instead, they are pulled into court politics, deception, and the plans of a powerful Sultana. The story keeps one foot in familiar fairy-tale territory, but Faizal treats the world as a lived-in fantasy landscape rather than a simple retelling backdrop.

What carries this book is the question of how villains are made. The Wishless Ones does not ask you to forget who Jafar becomes. It asks you to watch the pressures shaping him: grief, poverty, humiliation, pride, and the constant urge to seize control before someone else does. The pull between brotherhood and ambition is the main engine, and it keeps the stakes personal even when the politics widen.

In tone, this is more character-driven than Faizal's quest fantasy and less playful than her vampire books. It still moves, but the emphasis is on manipulation, desire, and the small decisions that slowly harden into identity. If you like origin stories, morally slippery protagonists, and fantasy worlds where intelligence can be as dangerous as magic, this is the appeal. Since the current Faizal branch begins with The Wishless Ones, that is the natural place to start.

It is a story about becoming, and about what gets lost along the way.