From the Back Cover: It has been more than 35 years since the mournful Beragundian Siege of Heled, but through the following decades of peace, the House of Olama has lived in relative tranquility, though they are much changed now.  Malièb Belgar, who had been just a newborn in those troublesome days of war, is somberly approaching the beginnings of his adulthood.  Yet he is a solemn boy, often lost in brooding thought; and despite the copious objections of his female kindred, he regularly spends his daily hours in the company of his father and half-breed cousin and his adopted sister.  From them he has learned much about the world and what it means to be an Akkallah.  But unbeknownst to young Malièb and his Olama household, a foreign exile, with an armed host, sits secretly upon the Cliff’s Edge of Mount Sûrana, looking out reminiscently over Heled.  With the return of this infamous exile, a new kind of tragedy shall befall the House of Olama, and bereaved Malièb (broken and disillusioned at heart, and full of violent fury) shall have to find his own way in a land beyond his home.