The Illandian Spring Tournament is about to reach its crescendo. With the king's only daughter, Danielle de Brie, and her twin brother, Kane, preparing to face each other in the tourney ring for the deciding match the citizens and nobles of Arkaelyon's capital city are in a fever of excited speculation. Determined to free herself from the fear her twin brother has always provoked in her and to show the world that men such as Kane de Brie can be defeated, Danielle has every intension of making her brother's title her own. But even as the two royals climb the stairs to Illandia's famous dueling...

With his world in ruins, Kane must either run and hope monastic and royal assassins do not find him, or accept the Archbishop's offer and embrace high treason. While the opportunity to replace his father as Arkaelyon's king and bring bloody revenge down on his sister's head is appealing-more than appealing, the prospect of being a pawn in a thousand year old struggle between Orthodox Goddians and Larniusian druids disturbs his atheist sensibilities, and more so when he learns the price he must pay to be Maig's Hand. Meanwhile, Danielle's search to find the truth of her dream and the...