For 16-year-old Merelin Lindon, the only secret her family ever had was the reason behind her father's mysterious disappearance, four years ago. But when an old family friend gives her a strange medallion that once belonged to her father, Merelin discovers just how deep the family secrets run. Without any warning, she finds herself swept into a foreign world mysteriously linked to Earth's mythical past — a world with no remembrance of its own history, tottering on the brink of a devastating war with an enemy it cannot recall.
As Merelin begins to understand her own place in this world, she learns that her father may have held the key to unraveling all the mysteries. With the help of a fascinating and sometimes infuriating young man named Yatol, she chooses to hazard everything, to suffer things she never imagined, in a foolhardy quest to rescue her father and save his people.