The Fifth Season by N K Jemisin 

On a planet, much like Earth, maybe it is Earth, where the continents have drifted back into one giant land, there are still changes that occur.  The people on this planet call the times that last after a change, anywhere from months to years, seasons.  Most settlements last only through one season.  The capital of the empire has lasted through four such seasons.  People with special abilities are shunned and recruited by the capital and trained to use their abilities to try to stave off earthquakes.  The main heroine is one such person.  We follow her in three different timelines: as a child, as a four-ring practitioner, and as a refugee.  In the middle timeline, she is paired with a ten-ring practitioner, almost unheard-of, as her mentor and is ordered to bear his child.  He is less than cooperative.  They are sent to a city on the coast to clear coral from a harbor.  She finds an artifact blocking the harbor.  Trying to move it, she raises it and doing so destroys the city.  She and her mentor find themselves transported to an island where life seems idyllic, and they can raise their child.  But the empire finds them.  In the third timeline, our heroine feels the start of another season and escapes as a refugee.  She is reunited with her mentor on his deathbed.  He has started the fifth season and wants her to finish what he started and destroy the empire.