The sequel to Illumination

A troubled land.
A priceless gift.
And the dawn of a new light.

Six years after a conflict that extinguished all magelight, Eiden Myr is in chaos. Wilding weather destroys crops. Drought bakes some regions while others are flooded; mountains quake; poisoned rivers rise; disease and pestilence spread.

In a dying trader town, three little girls fight to pro-tect a secret that could cost them their lives, while a young lad-of-all-crafts finds that local murders are only the first clue in a chilling conspiracy. In the far north, the remnants of the realm's warders struggle to compensate for magelight's loss. In the far south, a military race is remembering its origins and rousing from its stupor. Along the shoreline, a band of guerrilla fighters, posted to repel invasion, prepares to battle for mastery of the disaster-ridden realm-while one woman, a disgraced soldier, summons the courage to defy them all.

And on a remote, windswept island, a new breed of scholar strives to plumb the mysteries of ancient texts before they crumble in the absence of the wardings that preserved them-and before the realm crumbles for want of the knowledge they contain.

Which of them is the binder destined to reshape the shattered world?