Mama Szrama

The Wingfeather (formerly known as Igiby) children are sailing across the sea, leaving behind their Fang-infested home and hoping to find refuge in the Green Hollows, home of their grandparents and Aerwiar's last Fang-free nation. In many ways, Ban Rona (capital of the Green Hollows) seems like the home Janner has longed for; Fang-free, full of dogs, good food and "bibes" (drinks), with a library, their father's dearest friend, and even their very own ancestral house. The children are enrolled in the local school (the ugly head-mistress being their mother's childhood best friend) where they are trained in Hollish specialties of Sneakery, Dogspeak, and Pummelry Training. For the first time, Nia seems truly happy, even beginning a courtship with a childhood friend, now the Keeper of the Hollows. However, Kal is still a Fang, with deadly claws, a ferocious appetite, and a darkness to fight. Janner struggles to continually sacrifice his own desires to try and keep his brother safe, knowing that his mother's fate is also at stake. The family is still without their father, and his loss is ever more keenly felt. Dangers lurk in the Blackwoods, mysterious misshapen horrors called "the cloven," and one makes its way into Ban Rona, making a strange connection with the Wingfeather children. Janner worries that Gnag the Nameless is at work. And there is something stealing livestock, stirring up the fear and distrust of outsiders that has wormed its way deep into the Hollish folk. There is a monster in the Hollows. Is it Kalmar?

Tal's "mission" in book 5 (Into Battle) is to find the Empress, Keeper of the Violet (and most powerful) Keystone. He again crosses into Aenir, and manages to find the Empress, with instructions from Lokar as well as his own growing ability with Light-magic, far beyond his years. However, the Empress is found to be a doddering usurper, herself a puppet of Sharrakor, who is revealed to be a Free Spirit, not the Empress' Spiritshadow as is commonly believed. Sushin is revealed to be a "Shadow-pawn," completely controlled by a free Aeniran Shadow. The Empress and her brother had seized the throne from Mercur, and when he fled, he took the Violet Keystone with him. Tal realizes that this was the skeleton he & Milla found on their way from the Ruin Ship, and that he himself now wields (half) the Violet Keystone. The scene where Tal, the Empress & her brother meet is one of the most powerful in the book-- heart-stopping, sickening, hopeless...

Tal and Milla have been given a mission by the Crones-- to sneak into the Castle through the long-forgotten heatways and steal two sunstones: one for Tal's family, and one for Milla's Clan. So the unlikely, often-grudging pair's adventure continues, not on the cold darkness of the Ice, where Milla was confident and at home, but in Tal's territory; the warm and light-filled Castle. However, they face more enemies here than ever they did on the Ice. The brutality underlying the "civilized" Chosen culture is revealed, as Tal and Milla are caught and punished by the increasingly-frightening-and-powerful Sushin. Milla's Icecarl training allows her to escape unscathed from the Hall of Nightmares, and Tal's ingenuity and Uncle Ebbit help him escape from the Pit. As before, each fresh escape creates yet more questions and reveals even more obstacles. Their only hope is to Ascend to the Spirit World of Aenir and find the Codex- a magical intelligence that knows the answers to all questions.

Tal is a Chosen; a manipulator of light through the precious Sunstones-- all that gives light in his world, eternally dark beneath The Veil. He lives in the seven-turreted Castle; the only human dwelling in all the dark world, with a level and a tower for each color. Once a year, his family Ascends into the spirit realm of Aenir, where light and color still reign, and where one day he will bind a spirit being to himself to become his Shadowguard, taking the place of his natural shadow and becoming his life-long servant and companion. However, lately trouble has beset Tal's family; his father has disappeared (and with it the family Sunstone, their only way to Ascend to Aenir), is perhaps even dead, his mother sickens and hovers on the brink of death, his younger brother has been kidnapped, and enemies he does not understand are suddenly dogging his every move. In a desperate attempt to procure a new Sunstone to save his mother, Tal falls from the Red Tower, into a world he finds is not so dark and empty as he always believed. So much of what he thought he knew is now being challenged, especially by the fearsome would-be warrior girl Icecarl, Milla. The unlikely pair find themselves bound to one another and to a Quest-- to return to the Castle (no small feat across the dark world of Ice) and obtain two Sunstones; one for Tal, and one for Milla's Clan.