Every family has its secrets.
For 16-year-old Merelin Lindon, the only secret her family ever had was the reason behind her father's mysterious disappearance, four years ago. But when an old family friend gives her a small, strange metal circle that once belonged to her father, Merelin discovers just how deep the family secrets run. Without any warning, she finds herself swept into a foreign world mysteriously linked to Earth's mythical past - a world with no remembrance of its own history, tottering on the brink of a devestating war with an enemy it cannot recall.
As Merelin begins to understand her own place in this world, she learns that her father may have held the key to unraveling all the mysteries. And in her quest to find her father, she begins to find herself and a home in a world she never could have imagined, and now cannot imagine leaving behind. But averting one disaster may just spell the beginning of other hazards just as deadly, and Merelin realizes that she must find her place in the world of Arah Byen, or risk leaving it - and everyone she loves there - behind forever.
