News of the murder of Tyrus Jurgen has rocked the ancient lands of Algolus, and his sister, Lisandra Jurgen, has vowed revenge.
Lisandra has avoided the cloistered fate of a typical Algolan duchess by joining the royal guard and catching criminal after criminal. She is fast and strong, cunning and deadly â€" but if her brother's murderer were to escape justice, she would be dishonored and cast out of the guard. She would suffer a duchess's fate and be married off for a dowry.
The hunt will not be easy. Lisandra has heard that Tyrus was killed by a shadowy Miran who communes with the savage green people of the forests. No witnesses have seen this man, but some whisper the name... Simon Jones.
She arrives on the shores of Mira unprepared for its deadly surprises. To assure her success in her pursuit of her brother's killer, she finds a local guide â€" a cantankerous mountain man named Tiberius Bogg.
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Bogg hasn't laid eyes on Simon, his thirteen-year-old nephew, since they trekked back from the Hestern Sea together last year. It's clear to Bogg that Lisandra is tough as splintercat skin and ornery as an exiled dragon â€" as dangersome as the old swordsman Tyrus Jurgen ever was. Bogg reckons he'd better lead her off track, into the far and snakey woods, or his pup of a nephew won't stand a chance.
So he takes the job.
As Bogg leads Lisandra on a merry chase across Mira, Simon's ongoing quest to find the wild man, Mira's mystical being, leads him closer to discovering the true nature of the world.
But Lisandra will not be so easily fooled. She leaves Bogg for dead and closes in on Simon, hoping to shackle him for the trip to Algolus for trial and hanging. Once again, Simon must fight for his life alone against a powerful Algolan foe.
And when Lisandra finds that Simon is just a boy, she must choose whether to condemn a child to death... or give up her honor forever.
