Alisanos: the deepwood - a magical world with two suns and a sepia sky: It is home to demons, a thousand gods, and numerous other magical enities - but it is not just an environment. Like the body of great beasts, Alisanos ripples with movements both large and small. For the deepwood is sentient - alive in a far different way than a normal forest. Even the magical denizens of this amazing land, accustomed as they are to the ever-shifting landscape of their home, are not completely safe. For on one, on thing, born in Alisanos is immortal save for the deepwood, the battle to survive amid the deadly changes of whimsical Alisanos begins again with every dawn. But Alisanos poses a far greater threat to humans than to any of its natives. For the deepwood coexists with human lands, and its location is not fixed. Subject to fluctuations both large and small, Alisanos can suddenly shift miles in any direction, unexpectedly encompassing previously safe land. Even when not moving great distances, it borders are unstable. Humans taken by the deepwood are either never seen again, or are permanently transformed into hideous creatures - neither true demon, not true human. Audrun, Davyn, and their four children have fled their war-scourged homeland, joining a karavan headed toward a haven of peace where diviners have said their fifth child - the one Audrun now carries - must be born. Desperate to reach safety before the child comes, they have chosen a dangerous route, one that separates them from their protective karavan, and sets them on a road alone - a road that lies far too close to the volatile edge of the deepwood. Their only protection is the company if Rhuan, the karavan's guide, a man thought to belong to the magical race called Shoia, who can return from the dead six times before true death claims them. But they have barely begun their perilous journey when, with screaming winds, buckling earth, and burning rain, the deepwood overtakes them, separating and scattering this fragile human family. Her family lost, left in a terrifying landscape with only Rhuan, Audrun births her baby four months too soon...and yet, full term. For Alisanos has already claimed her and her new born baby for itself. And Rhuan, her mysterious guide, reveals that he is not Shoia, but something far stranger - a creature of the deepwood, a dioscuri - - the child of an Alisani god and a human woman. Protected only by Rhuan, a being who is just half human, with the deepwood already affecting her and her newborn child, can Audrun find her lost family and retain her humanity in the midst of Alisanos' capricious terrors?