The people of the Seven Demesnes live in unease. Every generation, seven sons are born to rule their seven walled cities. Without them, mankind is fated to fall.
Now, something is killing them before they can be born.
When Iminique Demascus senses a nameless evil striking at the unborn royal children, she has to make a choice. A noblewoman and a healer in a world where aristocrats and mages belong to different castes, she is forbidden by her father to ever heal. Breaking his dictate, she saves a single girl child.
No one thanks her. Neither the child's parents nor the people want a girl, reviling her for surviving when the males perished. Left as the princess's sole protector and faced with adversity and hostility from nearly every quarter, Iminique allies herself with the wizard who once dragged her to the brink of death and then inexplicably let her go, a wizard who has his own secret agenda and casts spells that should be impossible.
Meanwhile, in the south, a young sorceress falls prey to an ancient enemy, one weaving his own plans for bringing mankind to its knees.
