When Zahli is forced to run for her life, she ends up taking refuge at the Sanctuary, the hidden base of the Order of the Red Cloak, the last survivors of the magi, the noble class of expert magicians who served the king exclusively before the country was overrun by the Ladrisians.
Magic has always been Zahli's life and she is thrilled to be offered the specialist training of the magi.
But some within the Sanctuary are planning an insurrection. They mean to rise up and expel the Ladrisians and free Wuntril once and for all. Zahli has never believed that such an uprising could work. Yet inevitably, inexorably, she finds herself drawn into the plot.