Book excerpt: The new novel in the sweeping Mageworlds series. On the planet Entibor, Arekhon sus-Khalgath sus Peledaen has found shelter and domestic tranquility with his old love, Elaeli Inadi, at the price of what he had left behind: a dispersed and shattered Mage-Circle, an estranged brother who had tried to kill him, and a homeworld on the cusp of massive cultural upheaval. Arekhon finds himself impelled homeward by strange dreams and prophetic visions. The Great Working—the effort to do the unthinkable and reunite a galaxy long sundered by the Gap Between—remains incomplete, left unfinished in the aftermath of the dissolution of Arehkon's Mage-Circle. But too much energy and too many lives have been poured into the Working already; and it cannot end so long as any of the Circle members remain alive and bound into it. Home, unfortunately, isn't a safe place for Arehkon to be at the moment. For Eraasi has changed—and the great fleet families at the center of the Eraasian culture are girding for war. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.