In ages past, there had been four magical weapons, fashioned to be used only by the Magefolk. But their history had been lost, together with the Artefacts themselves, in the Cataclysm which had wrought changes on land and water alike. Lost also had been the history of the Magefolk, and the Winged Ones, the Leviathans and Phaerie. Aurian, the child of renegade Mages, finds herself sent to the city of Nexis to join the Academy and then train as a full Mage. Little does she suspect that she will quickly become entwined with a power struggle between Miathan, the Archmage, and the human inhabitants of Nexis. The only person to whom she can turn in Forral, Commander of the city's military garrison and friend of her dead father. But this friendship infuriates Miathan, and leads to a deadly conflagration, in which the first Artefact is revealed. Aurian's flight, with her servant Anvar, turns into both odyssey and rite-of-passage as she travels to the little-known Southern Kingdoms and begins to rediscover the history of the weapons which are the only hope against Miathan and Armageddon - The Artefacts of Power!

The second novel of Maggie Furey's Aurian saga unfolds in a sweeping blaze of glory, terror, and mystic enchantment, as Lady Aurian and her lover Anvar return to the holy city of Nexis to find that the crazed Archmage Miathan's sorcery has unleashed cataclysmic forces, locking the land in the icy grip of eternal winter.

The magnificent epic that Maggie Furey began in Aurian and continued in Harp of Winds soars to new heights of enchantment as Aurian and Anvar face unforeseen peril in their quest for a lost artifact of power At last the lovely Lady Aurian has regained her powers, and golden spring unlocks the iron bonds of a sorcerous winter. But still the corrupt Archmage Miathan’s curse follows her. And as she and her beloved soulmate, Anvar, quest northward toward the ravaged city of Nexis, they are pursued to the very gates of death by betrayal, madness, and forbidden spellcraft. Only by invoking the highest magic can they hope to find the Sword of Flame, last of the four great weapons fashioned eons ago. Only by awakening its might can they save a world newly threatened by a dark Mage as powerful as Miathan, and even more vicious...

Maggie Furey's glittering epic sweeping from Aurian through Harp of Winds and Sword of Flame, climaxes as Aurian draws near to a deadly enemy lurking in a city forgotten by time. . . Bearing the Staff of Earth and the Harp of Winds, the Lady Aurian secretly returns to the holy city of Nexis—ten years in the future. Now its marbled towers are desolate, its river port ravaged, its magefolk a mere legend. Here she must begin the search for her vanished soulmate, Anvar, and her lost child. . . and hunt down the evil adversary who stole from her the Sword of Flame, last of the four great primal weapons. But Aurian's final battle awaits her far away in the southlands. For there dwells her old nemesis, the crazed Archmage Miathan—and there, in the ancient city of Dhiammara, broods a dark magic that could shatter forever the destined redemption of her world.