Acclaimed author Elizabeth Moon spins gripping, richly imagined epic
fantasy novels that have earned comparisons to the work of such authors
as Robin Hobb and Lois McMaster Bujold. In this volume, Moon's brilliant
masterwork reaches its triumphant conclusion.
The mysterious reappearance of magery throughout the land has been met
with suspicion, fear, and violence. In the kingdom of Lyonya, Kieri, the
half-elven, half-human king, struggles to balance the competing demands
of his heritage while fighting a deadly threat to his rule: evil elves
linked in some way to the rebirth of magic.
Meanwhile, in the neighboring kingdom of Tsaia, a set of ancient
artifacts recovered by the former mercenary Dorrin Verrakai may hold the
answer to the riddle of magery's return. Thus Dorrin embarks on a
dangerous quest to return these relics of a bygone age to their
all-but-mythical place of origin. What she encounters there will change
her in unimaginable ways--and spell doom or salvation for the entire
world.