'This volume collects 28 stories by Lee Battersby, Deborah Biancotti, Trudi Canavan, Robert G. Cook, Rowena Cory Daniells, Terry Dowling, Thoraiya Dyer, Marion Halligan, Dmetri Kakmi, David Kernot, Margo Lanagan, S.G. Larner, Martin Livings, Kirstyn McDermott, Claire McKenna, C.S. McMullen, Juliet Marillier, David Thomas Moore, Faith Mudge, Ryan O'Neill, Angela Rega, Tansy Rayner Roberts, Nicky Rowlands, Carol Ryles, Angela Slatter, Anna Tambour, Kaaron Warren, and Janeen Webb.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
A disillusioned solider comes to harbour worrying suspicions about the camp follower in his tent.
'A world in which some girls are marked at birth with the Wyrding sign. The Warlord’s sons took the narrator captive in a raid and call her Sun-Fire because she won’t give them her true name. Now they want to force her unborn child to carry the dead Warlord’s soul, and the ancient Wyrding Woman of the Warlord’s clan is too powerful for her to overcome. She vows to resist. Yet she can’t resist the lure of the knowledge that the old woman offers her' (Lois Tilton, Locus Online).
'Shaya is imprisoned in a supernatural dungeon. Gradually we learn who Shaya is and how she came to be imprisoned through her developing relationship with her gaoler' (Nalini Haynes, Dark Matter).