Please read In Recent Years: Introduction before reading this post.
Year 1478
Working as a hunter in the village of Olston, Raya Ganner watches as more and more refugees arrive, displaced by civil unrest in Ith and revolution in distant Elpan. The young woman asks her friend on the town Council how she can help and soon she joins a group being sent to the nearest city, Vagren, in search of aid. In Vagren, she witnesses the dangers of the slave trade and befriends a tavern stable boy named Benn. Additionally, she is able to persuade two magicians—Viker and Lotha—to assist Olston with their contacts and their supernatural abilities.
As new building projects begin and healing is offered, Raya finds herself in the midst of a personal crisis—her brother, Novar, has murdered his beloved. As near as Raya can discern, Novar’s lover had insisted that they leave Olston to find a better place on Gethra; Novar, unreasonably terrified of leaving the safety of the town, lashed out without realizing the harm he was inflicting. Raya defends Novar in the public trial, but the Council decides Novar’s crimes cannot be excused and sentence him to death. Raya turns to Lotha for help—the friendly magician provides it amicably. Viker stealthily rescues Novar from the jail and the duo assure Raya that he has been sent to safety out of the town.
Raya encounters a traveller, Dago, who offers to buy some of her meats for the road; in the morning, Dago does not appear at their agreed upon place. Raya tracks him to the Old Granite Inn but there is no sign of Dago there either. She soon learns that a member of the town watch is missing and a search is under way.
To Raya’s surprise, Benn arrives in Olston. Discontent with his arrangements in Vagren and delighted by his friendship with Raya, he hopes to find work in Olston for the time being.
Year 1479
The new year is heralded in by a strange thunder and flash of light on the far eastern horizon. A party is assembled to investigate if some disaster has befallen the cities in that direction—Lotha is joined by Raya, Benn, and Raya’s friends among the town watch, Dondar and Hemsten. Before they reach the city of Ellakar, ash falls on their camp. They passed burned out farms and rock-dashed craters. Ellakar, they learn, has been replaced by a smoldering volcanic mountain. Lotha grows certain that the volcano was raised by powerful magic, not nature. In the ruins, Raya finds the apparent site of an arcane ritual—including a scorched corpse that had scrawled names against a stone wall before its death. The names—Nalisa Orr, Axar, and a third beginning with “I”—mean little to Raya. Sten is killed in a skirmish with looters, while the rest of their group set out for Vagren once more.
In Vagren, Raya and Lotha split up to investigate the names they found and the potential of a magical attack of such magnitude—though Raya has not told Lotha about the names. They discover that Nalisa Orr had a house in Vagren and track down the address. Peaking through a window, Raya spots Lotha within the house and quickly hides. Later, Benn and she break into the house. Raya finds a letter from Lotha describing to “I” that Raya herself will one day be a pillar of the community and that Lotha is overseeing business in Olston. Upstairs, in a locked room, Raya finds a table of puzzle pieces depicting faces and symbols. Some have names or text on the back—including one that depicts the missing traveller, Dago Ai Ji Malzo.
When Raya asks Lotha about the name Dago, she says she does not know it and agrees to look into it for Raya. Lotha also updates them on her own research; she has discovered that one of her own network, a woman named Nalisa Orr, was in communication with the sinister Mage Kings that rule Ith. Raya is allowed to autopsy the body but learns little. When she asks Lotha about the name Axar, Lotha admits she does know that one—Axar is a magician known for his service to the Mage Kings. Apparently, he is seeking to join their ranks.
Raya, Benn, and Dondar set out to Ith, the largest city in the land and the place of the Mage Kings’ rule. They learn of the unrest with the Mage Kings themselves, eleven rulers who lord their power over all the rest of the city’s populace. When a riot turns bloody and one of the eleven is killed, Raya and her friends barely escape with their lives. Unable to find information to shed light on the disaster in Ellakar, Raya seeks out the organized resistance that is growing in Ith’s secret corners. From one of their leaders, Raya learns where to find Axar’s house.
Axar receives them as though he has been expecting them. He explains a much different story to the one Lotha told Raya. He claims Nalisa Orr—also known as Miss Puzzle—was killed by Dago, a man the entire organization of magicians had captured and manipulated. Axar denies knowledge of Mount Lukar, the volcano that destroyed Ellakar. Axar admits his plan is not to join the Mage Kings, but to surpass them. The leader of the revolutionaries works for him, it seems, but not for long. A second revolutionary attack fails, and the leader is captured. At Axar’s behest, Raya begins to take a more central role in the rebel hierarchy.
When Raya assists Mistress Nerlav investigate the year-past death of her husband, she learns that a sorceress may have been involved. Impatient to have no leads on Dago’s current whereabouts, Raya returns to Axar’s house to demand answers. Axar assures her she will not like the truth, but Raya insists on receiving it—Axar reveals that Lotha killed Dago, simply because he was a loose thread in her plans. Before Raya can question him more, the group detect the stench of smoke. They soon find the house ablaze, and a ring of rebels surrounding the home—angered that one of their respected leaders, Raya, is in cohorts with a magician. Axar is forced to teleport and injured Raya and her friends to safety.
Year 1480
Raya and Axar reappear in a safehouse of Axar’s ownership—in Elpan. As he heals Raya’s leg, Axar explains that Journeying by magic takes a portion of the time it would have taken had they not teleported. In this case, they likely would have died if they had not teleported, so the spell took an unpredictable amount of time to return them to their destination. They learn that eight months have passed since the attack on Axar’s house.
They venture back to Ith, eager to learn what has happened in their absence. To their surprise, they learn that all the remaining Mage Kings were assassinated only a week earlier. No one has taken responsibility for the deed, leaving a power vacuum to be filled by the City Watch, the freed slaves—called the Delivered, and a violent criminal organization called Domeran’s Gang.
With Axar and Benn encouraging her, Raya begins to form an alliance of her own. Their agenda is to free the rebels and slaves that are still being held by the servants of the defeated Mage Kings. From a handful of successes, they build a trusty group of loyal followers; among them is Hallist and Avri, the latter of whom was originally arrested for killing her rapist and had never been able to return to her normal life. While building her influence in Ith, Raya is approached by a Councillor from Olston. It seems an illness is ravaging the town and even Viker’s spells are not enough to heal those afflicted. Despite the dangers posed to her parents, Raya decides to stay in Ith and see through her plans for peace.
Of the assassins, Raya is only able to encounter two; kept in cages as bait, she frees the duo but never learns for whom they work.
Their faction targets a third prison for freeing its captives. The battle within is more violent than anyone anticipated; many of Raya’s supporters are lost but they succeed. Against the judgement of her allies, Raya spares a few of the prison guards that survived the fight. They rescue many other prisoners.
Raya and her friends decide to enter an alliance with the City Watch—as the crimes of Domeran’s Gang grow more savage and the war in Ith rages on without a sign of stopping. Raya meets with Commander Ramas and they come up with a scheme to arrange a meet with Domeran and arrest him with an ambush of City Watchmen. Hallist expresses that many of Raya’s followers would rather see the Delivered or even Domeran get the upper hand, fearing that the City Watch would reimplement a system akin to the Mage Kings’ rule. Raya insists that law must be returned to Ith and they proceed with the ambush.
As Raya speaks with Domeran, waiting for the City Watch to move in, Axar incapacitates them all with a screeching noise. With his magic at his aid, he easily kills Domeran—contrary to the plan. Avri chants apologies as Axar acts, as though she could have warned Raya. Axar offers no explanation why he acted against the plan—instead he tells the waiting City Watch soldiers to take him to Commander Ramas.
Raya finds herself in a prison cell, after everything she has done to help the city. Commander Ramas explains that the only way to salvage the situation—with Domeran dead—was to claim the City Watch had done the deed. Capturing Raya was not Ramas’ intent, but he cannot risk releasing her until everyone learns that the City Watch triumphed over Domeran’s Gang. Axar provides Raya no assistance—Raya assumes that her alliance has dissolved and Axar acted for personal gain.
In the very least, Ramas offers Raya a better room. There, she is contacted by Saring, one of the guards she spared at the third prison she attacked. He works from outside the barracks to free Raya and her friends, but it is slow work. The City Watch is more powerful than ever. Able to communicate with Avri and Dondar at last, she learns that Avri witnessed some of Axar’s scheming and failed to warn Raya, for fear Raya would side with Axar against her. Avri saw Axar free a woman from the third prison, a woman he spoke to but who did not join the alliance.
Illness claims Raya as she continues living in Commander Ramas’ prison. She is able to recover slightly by the time that Saring’s plans are laid. With fake orders, Saring arranges a transfer of prisoners out of the jail. Despite a few close calls, they are able to walk right out, into the streets of Ith.
Unwilling to become a pawn in another magician’s scheme, Raya departs Ith in frustration. She marches home to Olston, where her father lies gravely ill. The Council welcomes her home with praise—and assures her that her friends will always have a home in Olston.