A WOMAN ALONE IN A MAN'S WORLD OF MAGIC..."Aye, that Mereddyd be Wicke, sure as Colfre is Cyne," said the townboy in a secret voice. "Brys ain't here today, and she's a' fault. It's his tongue, it is. Just flops between his teeth like a dying fish. He can't use it for naught."Chilled to the bone, Mereddyd fled. She had thought it. She remembered thinking it: May you forget how to use your tongue, Brys-a-Lach.Just that. Did that make her Wicke?According to the Osraed Ealad-hach it did, for a female was forbidden to wield the powers tradition reserved for men alone.There is only one way to prove her innocence: Mereddyd-a-Lagan must go on Pilgrimage to the Western Sea where a mysterious Being called the Meri will decide her fate. She will be the only female in one hundred years to attempt the journey, and she will remember, every step of the way, that the last young woman to challenge tradition never returned.Will Mereddyd become Caraid-land's first female Osraed, or will she die a heretic's death in the icy Western Sea?
