Zayla was just an infant noxling when her bitterroot offshoot was destroyed by a terrible suncreature. No one from her home survived. And from what she knows of her Nemora history, she shouldn't be alive either.
But she is. There's a constant hum inside her, a shaking that grows more violent and painful each time she harnesses her crafting to do her bidding. Nature is clearly trying to finish the job the suncreature started.

Her only hope is to finish walking the path. When she completes this sacred rite of passage, she'll never need to use her crafting again. She has to get to Ratnaa Grove, her final stop, and the quickest way there is through the deadly Cinder Forest. With the help of her sibling Oryn and an alluring musician named Shadre who they met along the way, Zayla fends off bloodthirsty suncreatures and discovers an invasion of evil sun goddess worshippers bent on razing the Groves.

As she struggles to survive, betrayal lurks on every side, and her crafting demands a higher price than even she expected. But the fate of the Nemora Groves, and the world as she knows it, might just lie within her.