Fortune has turned his attention to freeing those dragons frozen in time at Aether's Cross during the battle with the Charmed. However, it is a period of chaos and the land folds itself and obliterates all sign of Aether's Cross.

Behold the Man. Meet Karl Glogauer, time traveller and unlikely Messiah. When he finds himself in Palestine in the year 29AD he is shocked to meet the man known as Jesus Christ, hiding in the shadows of the carpenter's shop in Nazareth. But if he is not capable of fulfilling his historical role, then who will take his place?

After many perilous adventures, Simon Braithwaite and his companions have reached the wild and lonely land of the Nine Gods, to find themselves at the mercy of its fierce and xenophobic people.

Livak is bored. Winter in the Kellarin colony has its amusements but she's pretty much exhausted them and is eager to be doing something else. When Ryshad and Temar tell her of their plan to reclaim the southern settlement established by the original colonists, Livak reckons she may as well go along too. What she doesn't reckon on are the pirates looting the midway islands. Meanwhile In Hadrumal, the wizards are increasingly enmeshed in their own politics .

Haramis -- the White Lady -- has lived several lifetimes as Archimage and Guardian of a land now abloom with the mystical Black Trillium, once thought extinct. But now she is plagued by disturbing dreams that will drive her to seek a successor -- Mikayla, who knows nothing of her fate or kinship with the great Haramis. The challenges ahead will be more difficult than either Haramis or Mikayla coudl ever imagine. For installing a successor may be the most difficult fight they've ever had to...