The Second Realm

The once-backwater fishing town of Vessit has become the epicentre of the First Realm's growing crisis. Only Pevan has the experience to turn the town's defenders into an army matched to the Separatist threat. To Vessit's Gifted, though, Pevan stands for everything that has brought destruction to their doorsteps, and before she can face the Separatists, she'll have to master her allies' hostility.

Touring the South to raise an army of Gifted, Pevan can't hide from Chag's questions about their relationship. But, far from the front lines of the cold war against the Second Realm, a terrible corruption has taken root among the Gifted. A trap has been laid for Pevan and Chag that will push them closer than ever before - or leave them to fall apart once and for all.

The Separatists have finally launched their attack on the First Realm. In Vessit, Atla raises the alarm, and discovers that Pevan has special plans for him. She sends him to the Court with a desperate appeal to the Gift-Givers for help, but the journey will force him to confront every fear he has about his relationship with his Gift - and what the Gift-Givers' plan for humanity might be.

Rel travels into the future believing he will finally unlock the secrets of Fate's plan. Before he can confront Fate, though, he must adjust to a new time; a time of complex electrical devices, strange architecture and the half-human, half-Wilder Threekin. And when the truth about Fate does emerge, the hope he offers may come at too high a price.

Traveling to the future has not provided the answers Rel was looking for. Rejecting the unthinkable cost of Fate's plan, he turns to the one person he has always been able to trust. But Dora has been reshaped by three centuries among the Threekin, and even she can only offer Rel lessons that are hard to swallow.

The Separatist invasion of the First Realm has begun. Leading her makeshift army to fight them, Pevan has never seen so many Wildren in one place at once. Her troops are undertrained and inexperienced. Keshnu is the only Gift-Giver who can be spared to join her. And Rel is still missing, long overdue to return from his time-travelling adventure with the secret weapon he promised.

The Separatists are defeated. The First Realm is saved. But the fear that brought war remains, now focussed on Rel. Given one last chance to prove himself, he sets out to capture the last fleeing Separatist, the Clearseer Soan. But Soan's Gift is the equal of his own, and if Rel fails, no-one else is strong enough. And if he succeeds, he must still face his own reckoning among the Gifted.