In ages past, there had been four magical weapons, fashioned to be used only by the Magefolk. But their history had been lost, together with the Artefacts themselves, in the Cataclysm which had wrought changes on land and water alike. Lost also had been the history of the Magefolk, and the Winged Ones, the Leviathans and Phaerie. Aurian, the child of renegade Mages, finds herself sent to the city of Nexis to join the Academy and then train as a full Mage. Little does she suspect that she will quickly become entwined with a power struggle between Miathan, the Archmage, and the human inhabitants of Nexis. The only person to whom she can turn in Forral, Commander of the city’s military garrison and friend of her dead father. But this friendship infuriates Miathan, and leads to a deadly conflagration, in which the first Artefact is revealed. Aurian’s flight, with her servant Anvar, turns into both odyssey and rite-of-passage as she travels to the little-known Southern Kingdoms and begins to rediscover the history of the weapons which are the only hope against Miathan and Armageddon—The Artefacts of Power!

The second novel of Maggie Furey’s Aurian saga unfolds in a sweeping blaze of glory, terror, and mystic enchantment, as Lady Aurian and her lover Anvar return to the holy city of Nexis to find that the crazed Archmage Miathan’s sorcery has unleashed cataclysmic forces, locking the land in the icy grip of eternal winter

From the author of “Aurian” and “Harp of Winds” comes the latest entry in this remarkable saga. The flame-haired Lady Aurian is not only a mage of great power, but also a heroine of great verve and spirit. Now, with the birth of her child, she has finally regained her powers and been reunited with her soulmate, Anvar, but the Archmage Miathan's curse still follows her. And until Aurian wins the last of the ancient Artefacts, the mystical Sword of Flame, her victory over the powers of darkness is far from assured

At the end of “Sword of Flame,” the evil Mage Eliseth disappears through a rift in time with Aurian’s lover, Anvar, and the captured Harp of Winds. Accompanied only by a handful of companions, Aurian follows—only to find herself thrown ten years into the future by the unpredictable rift. And the world in which she finds herself is one which has been dominated by the evil Eliseth for all the years of her absence, and is therefore corrupt and almost unrecognizable. Anvar’s body is now in Eliseth’s control while his soul has been imprisoned in a crystal prison—and without the help of his mastery over the Harp of Winds, Aurian finds her powers severely diminished. Moreover, the Sword of Flame, which she has gained at the end of the eponymously-named book, is still not under her control, for she cannot bear to make the sacrifice that will bind it to her: spilling the life-blood of a loved one with its virgin steel. And somehow, she and her companions must overcome these monstrous odds to reunite Anvar’s spirit with his body, win the Sword, and defeat the evil Mages at last