Caleb, a disgraced Commander in the Commonwealth army, has been charged with protecting the caravan. Provided with only seven soldiers and a duplicitous wizard to help him he is given little chance. Trapped within the forced intimacy of the caravan Caleb and Neah must try and thrust aside their bitter hostilities in order to protect the new Torian from the marauding Shaelene, Shayla's assassins and a host of mythical, vicious creatures that stand between them and the safety of Carmelsara. In doing so they will have to leave the relative safety of their natural distrust and together weave something new and untried because in a world overtaken by greed only love has the power to save it. If they fail the whole world will fall into decades of darkness.