Tabaea the Thief stole something more precious that dragon’s blood from the enchanted old house: eavesdropping on the doddering wizard who owned the place, she stole the secret of wizardry itself! The spell she learned was the one all wizards learn as apprentices to make their athames — the sacred, ceremonial, and magical daggers that mark them out as wizards and allow them to work their spells.

The trouble was, Tabaea wasn’t any wizard. When she cast that spell herself it went disastrously wrong, creating a magical black dagger that would leach the strength and virtue out of anything alive.

The magical strength of a wizard, a warlock — the eye of a cat; the physical strength of an ox. Before she was done Tabaea the Thief had become a murderess, an Empress, a monster — a creature so awesome and so terrible that the act of trying to stop her could destroy Ethsar itself!