When Reandn's Remote Wolf Patrol is slaughtered under someone else's command, his explosive reaction earns him a discharge from the elite service that has shaped his entire life. He is left adrift in a society still reeling under the changes wrought by the return of magic.

But King's Keep offers him a chance to regain his rank: keep the Highborn woman Kalena whose very presence is a focus for the turmoil building around magic's return safe on the journey from the Resioran border to King's Keep. Soon enough Reandn finds himself embroiled in treachery and under attack by Resioran zealots and in order to make it out alive, he'll have to face his own worst enemy.

Magic.