A pair of magical silver bracelets and two siblings separated in early childhood are key to defeating an old man's power and evil ambitions.
15-year-old Rowan's world is turned upside down when her herbalist mother drowns during a storm, and the girl finds an old letter from her father. Her mother kept secrets: the goat is really a shape shifter cousin, the father she thought dead is still alive, and she has a younger brother. Why did her mother keep these secrets, what is the danger her father wrote of, is the silver bracelet her mother never wore magic, and does Rown herself have special gifts? She leaves her isolated forest home and heads south, where her father wrote he was going. Someone might be following her, but she also makes friends who help -- Edana, the horse lady, and Grandmother Wisdom of the Grasslands People. Meanwhile 13-year-old Samel, living with his musician father in Aquila, City of Eagles, finds another bracelet and experiments with its powers. Samel, with the help of his friend Alizarine, who paints dreams, learns he has a sister. He confronts his father and persuades him to go find her. They don't realize that someone has been watching them. Can Samel and his father reunite with Rowan and use their gifts to defeat a powerful old man's cruelty and ambition?