For readers of Kristin Cashore's Graceling and Tamora Pierce's Tortall Series, comes a brand-new epic fantasy adventure with twists, turns, magic, and mayhem! In this second book in the Birthright series, Mae is left with few choices about who to trust now that darkness within her own family has been uncovered. With children dying, Mae realizes that she must do the unthinkable in order to save them all. After uncovering a plot to use the wasting illness to activate their own mage powers, Maeryn Darnes doesn't trust anyone. That's a good thing as her own family is after her now. With her blood plotting against her, Mae must turn to the outsiders for aid. In secret, she works with them to strike the symbol of her family's heritage from her neck—the famed tattooed collar. But undoing the work of generations takes work. Maeryn Darnes is forced to enter into alliances with wandering mages and unscrupulous mercenaries to get the power she needs to active a ritual darker than anything she dreamed. As she makes a pact with the unknown, Mae has to wonder—had she made a deal with the an even greater evil than the one that lurks in her own family's home?