All Edrun and Jina ever wanted was to get married, raise children and have a long, happy and uneventful life in their native village, at the very last walking together hand in hand through the Gate of the Sixth Path into eternity. But the Gods of the Kalion Islands have other plans for Edrun and Jina. Dark forces are stirring up strife and discord that threatens to explode into destruction even more terrible than the chaos of the Temple Wars, still a bitter memory. Neither Edrun nor Jina alone can stop that. But together...? Edrun, Jina and the council agree that something needs to be done about the mysterious disappearances of young women of the Clans of the DrummGrissa. But late that night, before a plan of action can be agreed, a local guest-house becomes a raging inferno. All within perish; amongst them Harane, a Princess of a powerful clan and a Priestess of the Goddess Lute who was travelling to Hazek. Is there a conspiracy at work, one that extends into the highest echelons of both the Clans and the Temples? Digging too deeply might set the whole of the Kalion Islands alight with civil war. One man, it seems, is the key to everything--Edrun's old enemy Halgar Rassvorea, who's determined to finish Edrun off once and for all.