A new stand-alone novel from the acclaimed author of The Company and The Folding Knife. Gignomai is the youngest brother in the current generation of metOc a once-noble family exiled on an island for their role in a vaguely remembered civil war. On this island a colony was founded seventy years ago. The plan was originally for the colonists to mine silver but there turned out not to be any. Now an uneasy peace exists on the island between the colonists and the metOc. The metOc are tolerated in spite of occasional cattle stealing raids since they alone possess the weapons considered necessary protection against the islands savages. Gignomai is about to discover exactly what it is expected of him and what it means to defy his family. He is the hammer who will provide the spark that will ignite a brutal and bloody war.