Jake MacCorkle, a wounded combat veteran, drifts through life. When his father dies in an automobile accident, he is forced into a six-hundred-year-old relationship previously unspecified to him. Thousands of acres in North Georgia are his, but there is a catch. No tree can be cut, no road built, and the land can never be sold. Inheriting the land is a perilous secret, one he must never reveal. Grieving and confused, Jake visits the land to fulfill his father's last request. Weird happenings haunt him—people appear and disappear, watchers track and harass him, and disturbing dreams taunt him. Hidden deep within a mountain, Jake penetrates a magical world where faeries wield immense power through a glowing orb. Before his first day ends, assassins attack his new friends. Jake defends them, only to be drawn into a struggle for protection of this people and control of The Orb. Jake’s fears drive him to escape the conflict. Will he deny an ancient family pledge?