Nivin has never seen the colors of a sunrise. She has never seen the brilliant green of trees in summertime. She has never even seen her own face. Blind from birth, she has lived seventeen years in a culture where anyone with physical defect meets death by the King’s sword. When she is discovered and flees, she encounters the first thing she has ever seen in her life: a Charybdon, a portal in the form of shimmering ribbons of light. Along with a fellow fugitive, she meets a young man named Brand who seems to be from a different world altogether—a world where the dragon Scylla and a wicked sorcerer hold the lands in an iron grip. Sword and steel have proven worthless against their reign. But even as she unravels the mystical powers of the Charybda, Nivin begins to learn something disturbing about herself. Out of her element in more ways than one, what part can a blind girl play in a centuries-long war?
