After their shattering departure from Amberlight, Telluir House has begun to rebuild in the mountain village of Iskarda - but even there, River politics remain a threat. When Tellurith and her consort receive the precious yet harrowing gift of a possible new form of the qherrique, only one solution offers protection for Iskarda and the qherrique both: leave Iskarda. Find the River's Source.The qherrique itself chooses Tellurith a company, of husbands, lovers, old friends and new, and their passage upRiver is accompanied by upheavals and catastrophe wherever they pass. Nor are things quieter downRiver, or n Iskarda itself. Before she can return, everything Tellurith has worked for threatens to crumble, as war flares along the River, among the fall and liberation of states, including Amberlight. It takes revelation, sacrifice, great loss, and an impossible hope's fulfillment, to bring Tellurith and her company safely home from the Source, to a River that will never be the same again.