Book excerpt: The stars at Hanna's birth predict greatness, but she experiences precious little of it as the only girl growing up at an all male Monastery. Everyone there learns the same skills: how to perform basic magic spells and how to access the Memories, a pictorial historical system embedded into the brains of humans by the Ancients, a now defunct race. Even as she studies the Memories, Hanna wonders what could be so great about accessing them. Yet this ability is more exceptional than Hanna believes; most humans have lost the ability to access the Memories. Hanna earns exile for her father and herself when she inadvertently reveals that she knows the secret language of the Priests-a crime normally punishable by death. As Hanna and her father embark on their journey over frighteningly unfamiliar land and sea, searching for a safe place to make their new life, she ruefully longs for the security of the Monastery. Facing seasickness and walking distances greater than she has ever imagined, Hanna's doubts grow that she is bound for anything but despair and banishment. But the stars did speak the Truth. Greatness does await Hanna-if only she can survive being kidnapped, betrayed time and again, and can outrun a flood such as her world has never experienced before.