All at once, Aneira "Eira" Elfyn's peaceful life is thrown into bloodstained chaos.
A mage born in the kingdom of Lithe, Eira has had a mundane existence as an apprentice magistrate in her small province of Nefyn, helping the townsfolk as a healer and an advisor. After reaching the major milestone of becoming an official ruler at the age of 22, alongside her unamenable father, Calliten, she makes a life-altering discovery that shatters her understanding of her own identity into a million pieces. Calliten, whom she had known her whole life as her father, the man who had raised her by himself after the passing of her mother when she was only 4 years old, had in fact kidnapped her the day she was born- and her birth parents are dead.
As she confronts Calliten about this betrayal and demands an explanation, her home is attacked by powerful, mysterious adversaries. They wield magic Eira has never seen before, including one young woman, Varina, who can vanish, becoming invisible in the blink of an eye. Varina is a skilled swordfighter with an intense bloodlust, and Eira barely manages to escape from her and her accomplices, fleeing with a castle guard named Rhys. While Eira learns to trust Rhys during their escape, she is also hiding another concerning development from him: hallucinations that arose at the same moment their enemy attacked.
Seeking answers about these invaders while wondering if it could all be connected, she and Rhys travel across the kingdom, hoping to find a woman who Eira thinks may know more about magic than anyone else in all of Lithe. But she finds that the more she learns, the further she must venture to discover the truth about magic-and herself. The knots of truth unravel before her, and Eira cannot help but follow where this twisted rope leads.
