When young Aja masters her homeland's rarest magic, Animism, she's chosen by a union of wizard scholars to become the ambassador to a mighty trade city in the north. She expects a degree of culture shock, but is taken off guard by the layers of corruption and violence that greet her in this so-called 'enlightened' part of the world. Unwilling to give up and return home, the young Animist resolves to unravel a tangled mystery of murdered magic users, fallen heroes and a darker world than she was ever trained for.