When soldier Leven was transformed into a Herald - a magical killing machine in the Imperium's brutal conquests - her mind was wiped clean. But strange visions still show her glimpses of the ancient and mysterious island of Brittletain. Now, with the war won and the Imperium satisfied, she wants to find out who she really is.

Envoy Kaeto has done a number of important little jobs for the Imperium, most of them nasty, all of them in the shadows. His newest assignment is to escort the bone-crafter Gynid Tyleigh as she travels across the Imperium. But Tyleigh's ambition alarms even Kaeto, and her conviction that she has found a new source of Titan bones, buried deep in the earth, could lead to another, even bloodier war.

Ynis was raised by the griffins and has never seen another human face. She lives wild on Brittletain with her talonsister, T'rook. By choosing not to kill Ynis when she was just a baby, the griffins may have doomed themselves - because the girl's past is coming for her, and it carries a lethal blade...