A gifted young master of ceramics never expected his hands—trained to manipulate clay—to be called upon to wield sorcery. But when Ross Cambridge is thrust into contact with the Quathiels, the elemental beings who choreograph events, he is given an impossible choice: learn their sorcerous arts or lose the woman he loves.

For centuries, the Quathiels and human sorcerers have warred for control of the fertile north. After the Blessed Plague shattered the old empire, surviving sorcerers were isolated in the frozen south—desperate to reclaim the land and status they had lost.

Ross lived far from the borderlands, but a sorcerer on a quest for a lost artifact destroyed his village, burned its homes, and enslaved many of its people. Among them was Ross’s betrothed—pregnant and now sorcerously Bound. Legend says that only death can free the Bound.

Refusing that fate, Ross pursues her captor across the western wilds, working with the Quathiels for the means to remove the spell. But sorcery comes at a price. Those who wield it are marked for exile and enslavement, or death.

The steps have been laid before him, the cadence set. To save the woman he loves, Ross must learn the Quathiels’ dance—and risk becoming the very thing the world fears.

Talismans - https://mybook.to/Talismans-01