To common folk, the Guidestars were just two points of light, hanging motionless in the sky. But Rowan had learned the secret kept by the mysterious master-wizard himself: there were other Guidestars; and, incredibly, one had fallen to earth, somewhere in the uncharted wilderness called the Outskirts.

As a Steerswoman, Rowan could not rest until she learned the entire truth. And so she set out into the Outskirts, where barbarian tribes rejected strangers and the very land itself would strive to destroy her.

She did not realize that the Outskirts had a secret far greater than the fallen Guidestar, a secret desperately important to humankind -- and that even the Outskirts were not free of the wizard's power...