The Bitter Wars left a world divided. Now the lven governors convene a Council at Glenhallow, while the savage kobalen gather in numbers not seen in five centuries. Vastly outnumbered, the lven clans will send barely trained guardians to confront the kobalen, and a young female warrior, Eliani, will be entrusted with the most crucial mission of all: to reach distant Fireshore and learn why their governor has not responded to the call to war. Bound to her lover Turisan by the power of mindspeech, Eliani will feed vital information to the lven Council across vast distances. But Eliani cannot see the dark force watching from the Ebon Mountains. There, Shalr, the ruler of exiled Clan Darkshore, has given the mindless kobalen both power and a plan to cut off the lven from their brave and gifted mindspeakerand to reclaim for Shalr's nearly extinct vampiric clan their ancestral land: Fireshore. But Shalr guards her secrets carefully, and even Eliani cannot know what terrible purpose lurks in the heart of the exiled.From the Paperback edition.