"Dale couldn't sense it at all. Not even the barest glimmer of a reading. There was nothing. She could see the tree, and could feel the bark under her hand when she touched it. She didn't understand. Reaching out again with her fingers, she scraped the bark lightly, almost afraid of what she would find. Again, there was nothing. To her mind, the tree wasn't even there, even though she could see it alive and thriving right before her eyes. Even when delving a dead tree, a Tree Warden could sense the faint spark of life and the living things that encircled it. That was not the case with this one. It simply didn't exist to her Warding senses." Dale's world will never be the same again. This mysterious affliction has been sweeping through the world of the Ten Cities, leaving an unseen destruction in its wake. Wherever this blight is found, the mystical Wardens can no longer feel the life energies of the plants and animals they have been chosen to shepherd. Even Justyn Aginforth, the most powerful of the Wardens, whose rare Talent for the earth is unprecedented, is at a loss on how to combat this new menace. From the moment they meet, Dale gets swept into Justyn's quest to discover the source of this Fading, and find a way to stop it before it can overtake the entire world. But Justyn finds another mystery in Dale. She is not the simple Tree Warden she believes herself to be, and seems to have a connection to this scourge upon the earth. Unraveling these hidden secrets leads them to the very doors of the Warden Academy itself, but it may already be too late.