Starting six months after the ending of the previous book, Shadowblack (which you really need to have read). Charmcaster finds Kellen, Reichis and Ferius traversing a desert on their way to Gitabria. However, as is often the case for Kellen and crew things aren’t going according to plan and they are running from a mage induced lightning storm.
After stopping to stand and fight, the mage who they initially thought was hunting them continues on past the trio, unaware and uncaring. It turns out that the mage isn’t hunting them but is being hunted themselves and is running from a group of Berabesq Faithful (religious zealots).
Doing the right thing, the trio go and attempt to rescue the mage but in the ensuing battle, Ferius is badly injured. After holing up in a Traveller’s Saloon on the Gitabrian border to allow Ferius’s injuries to be treated, yes, to the Argosi booze and gambling are wondrous medicines.
After a while, the intrepid trio, now accompanied by the rescued mage and their familiar, at the behest of an Argosi discordance card depicting a small mechanical bird leave the saloon and resume their journey finding themselves once again heading towards Gitabria and its Capital, Cazaran for the Grand Exhibition.
The image on the discordance card, the small, lifelike, magical and innocuous mechanical bird is the highlight of the aforementioned Gitabrian Grand Exhibition wowing everyone in attendance. But, its invention also has disastrous consequences as the representatives from the other nations all vying to purchase the bird. Something so beautiful and innocent could, in the wrong hands (if they are able to unlock the secrets behind its creation) be turned into something ugly and as the discordance cards suggest used to start a war.