"It is eight hundred years since the legendary King Connavar defeated the army of Stone. The Rigante are now a conquered people, living under the iron rule of the Varlish, their customs despised, their culture all but destroyed. A world that once knew magic is choked with the black smoke of furnaces creating engines of destruction, and the secrets of the ancient gods are about to be learned, with terrible consequences. One woman knows that the fate of mankind hangs in the balance; one mystic who follows the ancient paths. She is the Wyrd of Wishing Tree Wood. To save all that lives she must find a way to bring two enemies together; two young men from different cultures. One is a Varlish nobleman, cultured and skilled, the other a Rigante outlaw, as savage and tough as the land that birthed him. They have nothing in common, save a secret that neither shares. In both runs the blood of Connavar the King."