Windshaper

When the Sundragon is unbound,
And the missing Binder found,
The crimson eye to a mortal comes:
Kesrin unknowing, can you name the one?

In ancient times the War of Three Worlds raged between the Cerin (the forces of light) and the Cth’thonil (the forces of darkness) in the Sheldaran star system, culminating in the annihilation of the worlds of Rhinnera and Kshvara and the retreat of the Cerin and surviving peoples of those worlds to Lileas, homeworld of Makers, Shapers. Dragons, and Dragoncharmers. The Cth’thonil destroyed the Cerin city of Silindon-fel in the final battle, but the Cerin in desperation surrounded the planet with the rings of confinement, sealing the world against offworld travel and preventing its conquest.

WINDSHAPER, the first volume of THE MASKS OF LLYRA, takes place 5000 years after the war. It tells the story of two young lovers from an isolated fishing village who have great power thrust upon them, pushing them into the renewed global conflict between these ancient powers. Rowan, a potter’s son, inherits a mystic Cerinstone with the power to bypass the Cerin rings and travel between worlds, while the orphan Qwendi discovers she is not only a Shaper, but has been bred to be a Shaper Queen and replace Eiana, renegade Queen of Dragoncharmers, Shapers who enchant and control the Dragons.

The Cerinstone exerts strange power over Rowan, who hates the talisman but cannot give it up. The Emperor of Torba and Eiana both covet the gem to further their plans. With imperial agents in pursuit, Rowan and Qwendi quest to discover the truth about the Cerinstone but are soon separated. Rowan is possessed by a vampiric creature called a niath which abducts him to the world of Pelouri, ruled by the Lady Amathea. He travels to other worlds and finally the school for wizards at Yu Loran, to study with the wizard Aris. Leaving Yu Loran to join the Torban resistance, he is seduced by Kela, leader of the Sisters of Xelos who worship the goddess of death and are allied with the Empire and Dragoncharmers. Taken prisoner in Tabu-Haraka, capital of the Empire, he finally confronts the Emperor in battle.

Following Rowan’s disappearance, a Telenin phoenix takes Qwendi to Wiriath, home of the Shapers, where she encounters the parents she long thought had died when she was a child. She undergoes her first shaping ritual, losing her memory and becoming trapped in the shape and mind of a Dragon. Years pass before she recovers her memory and begins to comprehend her Shaper nature and control her shaping power. After freeing the Sundragon from his thousand-year entombment, she accepts her role as Queen or Prime Binder of Shapers and leads the Shapers into war, confronting Eiana in the Battle of Tabu-Haraka. There, she has the chance to reunite with Rowan—if they have not changed too much and drifted too far apart since their separation.