Forty-five hundred years ago clans of marauding horse nomads obliterated a peaceful, widespread, long-established and completely sustainable agricultural community called the Old Europeans. Conflict between these cultures forms the backdrop for Ahna's coming of age. The only daughter of a chief, she is destined to marry to create a tie between clans, but she is also born to the secret inner circle of the women's society. Thus her future demands fealty to the Goddess and responsibility for keeping the most important, most dangerous secrets of her people. At fourteen the statuesque golden blond...