The Powerless Trilogy in Order

The core trilogy is short and finished, which is unusual in current romantasy and a large part of the appeal. You can start it today and reach the ending without waiting for anyone.

The Powerless reading order

1. Powerless (2023) — Paedyn hides her lack of ability, saves a prince by accident, and is entered into the Purging Trials as a result. Enemies-to-lovers with a competition structure and a secret that gets more dangerous every chapter.
2. Powerful (2024) — A short companion novella following a secondary character during events that run alongside book one. Entirely optional, and best read after Powerless rather than before.
3. Reckless (2024) — Picks up straight from the first book's ending. Darker, angrier, and the middle instalment where the political stakes replace the competition ones.
4. Fearless (2025) — The conclusion of Paedyn and Kai's arc, and the end of the main trilogy.
5. Fearful (2025) — The second companion novella, from a viewpoint outside the trilogy. Sources disagree on whether it sits best after Reckless or after Fearless — either works, and neither is required.

The three novels are the series. The two novellas are companions that run alongside rather than advance the plot.

There is no book called Ruthless

This one is worth stating flatly, because it circulates constantly: the Powerless trilogy is Powerless, Reckless, Fearless. There is no Ruthless. The title appears in reading-order posts, in comment threads and in at least one widely shared graphic, and it does not exist.

The confusion is understandable — the actual titles are three near-rhyming adjectives and the novellas add two more — but if a list you are following includes Ruthless, it was not checked against anything.

Are the novellas worth reading?

Only if you want more of the world. Powerful and Fearful are short, told from viewpoints outside the main pair, and cover events happening concurrently with the novels rather than pushing the story forward. Skipping both leaves no gaps.

Where they do earn their place is with secondary characters the trilogy does not have room for. If you finished Fearless wanting to know what someone else was doing during all of it, that is exactly the itch these scratch.

One further note on placement: sources disagree about Fearful, with some slotting it after Reckless and others after the trilogy ends. Nothing breaks either way, and since it neither depends on nor advances the main plot, the honest answer is that it does not much matter. Read it whenever the urge strikes.

If you liked Powerless

The obvious neighbour is Fourth Wing — same lethal-training-institution premise, more dragons, and not yet finished. Throne of Glass starts from a competition too and goes somewhere far larger. For the court intrigue rather than the trials, The Cruel Prince.