Calliope “Cala” Rosewood is the main protagonist in A Ruinous Fate, the first novel of the Heartless Fate series, a young adult dark fantasy series written by Kaylie Smith.
Calliope is a rogue witch who can use her powers to stop others’ energy by seizing their blood through her magic. She also carries the Siphon curse, which allows her to drain enemies’ energies to the point of death, though she often resists the call to use this power, as it makes her feel like a monster. To avoid the Siphon being called from her depths, she avoids touching people. The novel follows her as she attempts to prevent herself from becoming a Blood Warrior, one of the six soldiers to be used as near-invincible pawns in the Fates’ War between immortals and mortals and forced to fight against everyone they know and love.
At 19, Calliope is curvy/plus-sized, with black hair and dual-colored eyes — one gold and one purple — a mismatch she usually tries to cover with “glamour” (magic), as it gives away that she has the Siphon curse.
Calliope is intelligent, perceptive, and very loving toward her two friends, fellow outcasts Delphine (a siren) and Hannah (a witch), with whom she travels to avoid being tracked down and exploited for her powers. Much of the first novel finds Calliope torn between her attraction to two Onyx princes who are brothers — Ezra, the younger brother who she’s deeply attracted to even though he betrayed her trust, and Gideon, his charming older brother who may share a similar fate to Calliope. Her struggle to accept both the rogue witch part of herself as well as the Siphon part of her identity is a metaphor for bisexuality that develops throughout the story.