Kidnapped by fugitives fleeing the homeland, teenage girl Laya is forced to become an apprentice to the dreaded, aging magician Langi. Frightened, lonely and angry she gradually accepts her place amongst these people and in the end, utterly unexpected, the future of them all is dropped within her hands. Can she decide for the best?

Told by a master story teller from Aotearoa, this historical novel is, uniquely, set four thousand years ago amongst the sea voyaging ancestors of the Polynesians of the Pacific Islands. Fast paced and authentic, the story grips you and takes you there on the great canoes that settled the vast Pacific - the last great migration of mankind to settle the remotest corners of the world.