Priestess, healer, warrior, witch, Rifkind rode out of the Asheeran desert alone but for the Goddess of the Bright Moon, to whom she owed her allegiance. Alone she faced the strange new world of "civilization"; alone she drove herself beyond all endurance to wrest the secret of her destiny from the all-powerful enemy who had that secret to teach. And she survived.

Now new challenges beckon Rifkind from the comfort of life at Castle Chatelgard with the man she had thought she would love: to the untracked swamps of the Felmargue, said to be under a curse too powerful for even the gods to lift. In the center of that land of harsh magic, on a plateau no visitor has lived to describe, the Well of Knowledge survives: source of the Lost Gods' power, and of the Black Flame itself. In battle to the death with the powers of the Felmargue, Rifkind will be driven to the brink of mistrusting her own Goddess - and she will meet a man who for the first time makes her mistrust herself.