ALAYSHA is a witch who has more power than she can control and her father uses that gift to decimate his enemies. Over her seventeen years, her power has enabled him to become the Emir of a large land, where even as the conqueror's daughter, she suffers the prejudice and fear of those around her. When she is asked to annihilate an entire peaceful village, she doesn't realize it is the last of her own mother's tribe, and only discovers too late that the battle she has won for her father may cost her the only connection she has to her past, and with it the secrets to managing her gift.She needs to find the one person who managed to escape her power, the charismatic Yenic, a youth who seems to know more than he wants to tell and who has become the target of her father's next campaign. With orders to kill, she sets out on a mission of her own very much in contrast to the one her father wishes her to fulfill. The trouble is, there is someone else out there who would use the water witch for his own gain, and unless she can find a way to consolidate who is the real enemy from supposed ones, her entire homeland of Sarum, the only three people she loves, and countless other innocent people will die.