A widow attempts to fulfill her dead husband’s last request—to enter his prize horse in the Derby—and plunges into a deadly world of blackmail, revenge, and murder Less than a year after arriving at his sprawling ancestral estate as his secretary, Isabel Cunningham marries the much-older Charles Schriber. But now Charles is gravely ill, and before he dies, he asks one last thing of his wife. Determined to honor her husband’s deathbed wish, Isabel makes preparations to train the magnificent Silver Falcon to win the Epsom Derby. But someone doesn’t want Isabel to succeed. When she almost drowns in an accident, suspicion immediately falls on Richard Schriber, Isabel’s handsome, troubled stepson, who was estranged from his father for a decade and blames him for his mother’s tragic suicide. As the Derby approaches and the violence escalates—a vicious attack on a stable boy is followed by two brutal murders—Isabel must confront a shattering truth about her deceased husband and the man who now ignites a dangerous desire in her. Is Richard the lover she can trust with her life? Or a homicidal maniac just waiting for the right moment to strike?

Despite his mother's insistence, young William knows he is destined not to toil with a swordsmith's hammer in his hand, but rather to stride the open country with a falcon on his fist. And when he rescues a magnificent bird of prey belonging to King Henry himself, the boy finds in His Majesty's favor a golden opportunity. Neither the stigma of a clubfoot nor the powerful influence of prophecy will keep him from fleeing the smoky smithy to run the open fields...in the shadow of the sky's winged masters. But his journey will be a tumultuous one, marked in equal measure by triumph and torment. He will meet a lifelong friend and make a deadly enemy, be hunted through the wilderness and go hungry on city streets. And as he travels from the huts of the lowly to the castles of the highborn, growing from callow youth to experience-scarred manhood, he will fight -- with honor for what is right and with fury against wrongs no man should suffer.

Bair, the progeny of an Elf and a shape-changing Baeran, is cursed with a destiny that he is the Hope of the World--perhaps the long-foretold Rider of the Planes. Unaware of the peril around him, Bair accompanies his friend Aravan on a quest to find the yellow-eyed demon Ydral. But the oracle warns them to be prepared for a time of chaos.