Daine is a simple mountain girl, and despite her powerful wild magic, she is not comfortable with the pomp and glitter of a great court. But when Emperor Ozorne asks that she accompany Tortall's diplomatic mission to Carthak so she can tend his ailing birds, it's a request that cannot be refused.
Though Daine has the wizard Numair and the lady knight Alanna to help her, she soon finds herself trapped in a web of magic and intrigue stranger and more bewildering than any she has yet faced. For the emperor has overstepped his bounds, the gods are angry, and the Graveyard Hag herself has chosen Daine as her tool to change the situation.
Saddled with a strange new power, Daine is already jittery and angry. Then a final, dreadful event pushes her over the edge, and she erupts in a ferocious display of rage and magic.