The very soil of Éclatan harbors a dread secret-as the first Nwtyrrans found when they came seeking energy to power their mighty civilization. For the crystalline sands that make the hillsides glow also stimulate extra-sensory talents in select individuals-most often those who favor their left, or spell-hand. Now, centuries after Nwtyrra's disastrous fall, spell-handers are branded with the spiral serpent to mark them outcast; those found to possess sinistral mind talents are killed.

Kier, a war-weary soldier and nobleman's bastard, has battled years to conceal the sinistral skills that could cost him his career-even his life. Rescued on the midnight streets by JonMarc, a streetwise slave and thief whose left hand bears the serpent brand, Kier suddenly finds himself bound by a blood debt to a self-serving miscreant whose recklessness could get them both killed. Their disdain is mutual. Yet when Kier's mysterious mentor, a monk of the reclusive Fithlon Brotherhood, foresees that a last remnant of the power that ultimately destroyed Nwtyrra will soon be discovered in Kier's war-torn homeland of Alcor, the two are charged by prophecy with the dread task of retrieving the powerful crystal before it can trigger further devastation.

Yet others seek the deadly prize. The Fithlon renegade Táranos desires its power to expand his own sinistral skills, that he might wreak brutal vengeance on a world that persecuted him. And the fanatical Covenant Priesthood covets it as a means to expose and annihilate all sinistrae.

Harried and pursued, Kier and JonMarc reach Alcor, only to find their quest impeded by brutal civil war. A half-blood, his loyalties torn, Kier battles treachery and political intrigue to save himself and his fractured land from treasonous conspiracy, while a captured JonMarc must discover his nascent sinistral skills and the secrets of his brutal past to win his way free.

But when Táranos wrests the perilous gemstone from them and uses it to unleash his ultimate revenge, Kier and JonMarc are forced to confront their deepest terrors to challenge him. In the end, neither the prophesies, the quest, nor the power itself are what they appear, and it is not sinistral talents, but the acknowledgment of their own uniqueness and deepening friendship, that enables them to defeat the Fithlon renegade and set themselves, and their world, on a path toward redemption.