Muir is a slave, the lowest of the low. Yet hers is a magic great enough to shake the earth, great enough to topple kings from their thrones... perhaps even great enough to free the gods from their ancient prisons -- if only she can free herself first.

Rodhlann is among the last of the Daiesthai, a race of inhuman sorcerers who bled the gods of their magic in order to enjoy limitless power and eternal life. But now, after untold centuries, the Daiesthai have lost the will to live. Only Rodhlann resists oblivion's siren song. Only he dares to dream of a future for his kind. And for that crime, they will kill him if they can.

Z'ev is the son of a tyrant. A scholar with a crippled leg, he seeks forbidden knowledge -- and the power that goes with it: power enough to end his father's despotic rule and replace it with something noble. But tyrants do not yield without a fight. And power such as Z'ev seeks holds dark temptations of its own.

Harb is a mute. Taken as a boy, he was twisted by magic and shaped into a voiceless weapon. No longer human, purged of will and desire, Harb is a warrior without equal, an assassin without scruples who lives for one purpose only: to protect his master, Z'ev. But now, as Z'ev plots rebellion, Harb feels the cruel magic of his making falter. And in the desert of his heart, something impossible is stirring.

Thrust together by chance, pursued by enemies as cunning as they are merciless, four lost souls must learn to trust one another or die....