The Yellow City is in crisis. Men have always possessed the magic that sustains civilization, from healing the sick to calling the rains to keeping the mice from the granaries. Now the rains are weeks late, the wells are drying up, and the Sun Mages cannot summon the powers that the empire needs to survive. When magic appears-inexplicably-in the hands of a few women, the men react swiftly and furiously. Raeshaldis, the only girl ever accepted to the College of the Sun Mages, finds the mages won't teach her the spells. Corn-Tassle Woman's budding powers can't protect her from an abusive husband. And the Summer Concubine must play the dutiful consort even as danger looms for her Raven sisters. For while famine threatens and fanatics riot, someone is killing the most gifted female magic-workers...

Faced with an attempt by the land chiefs to oust the King, and with the efforts of her own family to re-enslave her, Raeshaldis must play a deadly guessing-game while an even more terrible threat awaits.