These times are dark indeed. In the year 991, fear - of the unknown, untrusted, foreign - runs rampant through the newly-strung-together kingdoms of England. With the long-continued Danish raids and the burgeoning threat of Norman conquest, lives are expected to be both brutal and short. That's, of course, if you're not cut down by black magic first. To say that magic is feared is to drastically and dangerously understate. It's not simply feared. Rather it and its ilk are ruthlessly hunted down - those suspected of dabbling in such are barbarically put to death. Magic and all it encompasses is to be squashed out entirely.

There are survivors, however. There are those with magic in their veins who seek to change this dark and savage world into something better for themselves and others. There are those who seek to segregate themselves and their society, to push those of "thinner blood" back into their own cruel world of witch burnings, executions, and ransom. And, although none of them knows it yet, nor do they know much of each other, there are those who will, indeed, create something - someplace - that's never been seen and that will stand more than a thousand years to come.

But that light has yet to burn. Blackness still shrouds England, the only reprieve brought by the bright, ever-present flames of witch burnings.


We'll open with five characters.