Codex Alera

A book series by Jim Butcher that doesn't get the love it deserves, mostly because it's overshadowed by Mr. Butcher's other, overall more popular book series The Dresden Files. About a world where every person in the populace has power over one or more "furies", or spirits of water, fire, earth, air, wood or metal. Some have one, others have multiple. However, the fate of that world lands smack on the shoulders of the one young man that DOESN'T have any furies. In addition to Tavi, the previously mentioned fury-less kid, there's also his aunt, Isana, his uncle, Bernard, a spy named Amara, a slave/swordsman named Fade or Araris, the bastard son of a nobleman, Max, and Tavi's love interest, the "barbarian" woman Kitai.