Linn wants nothing more than to be left in peace--but her brutish stepfather has other plans. When he demands that she convert her faith and worship the demon Rane in order to wed a Ranite townsman, Linn dares to do the one thing she dreams of: escape. But not before receiving a whipping at her stepfather's cruel hands, an act that leaves a gash in her palm in the shape of an arrow--and set in motion her destinay. A mystifying path opens up before her, a path of bent grasses and slopting tree branches. It guides her through the landscape of Maether on a quest to find the City of Trees, home to the mythical lysefolk ... an to a world whose future depends on Linn alone. ~