Our guards were a pair of Guardians from the Conclave of Sorcerers. We were in their citadel’s tower, overlooking the town’s main square, where the boring speeches were being made. We weren’t prisoners, but we weren’t exactly guests.

My accommodations in the citadel were bright, airy, and more than comfortable, with a sweeping view of Mid’s harbor. Being a member of the Benares family, I kind of expected something along the lines of dark and damp, with a view of iron bars. Sometimes it’s nice to be disappointed. Phaelan had opted to stay on his ship anchored in Mid’s harbor. Good choice. At least he had one.

Phaelan was here because he’d come with me. I was here because I had to be.

My name is Raine Benares. I’m an elf and a seeker—a finder of things lost and people missing. I can now add “finder of stones of cataclysmic power” to my resume. I found one last week, and I can’t get rid of it, or the cataclysmic power it gave me as some sort of sick and twisted finder’s fee.

The stone with the warped sense of humor is called the Saghred. It’s a black rock about the size of a man’s fist that fell from the sky a millennium ago, more or less. I ancient times, armies that carried the Saghred before them were indestructible—and their adversaries were annihilated. You’d think something as small as the Saghred couldn’t cause all that much trouble, but you’d be wrong— apparently size really doesn’t matter.

Every magic user who’d been bonded to the Saghred had gone crazy. Not crazy like an eccentric aunt, but take-over-the-world-and-kill-millions kind of crazy. The Saghred and I were bonded, but I couldn’t sense it now. It was locked in a containment room in the lowest level of the citadel, under heavy guard, and spellbound under layers of the strongest bindings the Guardians could weave.