Since her father's suspicious death eight summers ago, Kindra has trained to become her tribe's first woman warrior. Although she completes the whipping ceremony to prove her strength and make a blood-bond with the tribe she fails to receive her warrior name. She's determined to earn her name in battle, but her plans change when the enemy Obsidian tribe claims her priestess sister as restitution for the war. To Kindra's surprise and horror the new chief allows them to take her sister.

Rumors widespread at her father's death are whispered in her ear once more. It was the new chief who poisoned her father, they say. It was the new chief who sold her sister to the enemy. It was the new chief-not the War God-who refused to grant her a warrior name. Although she didn't believe the rumors in the past, Kindra begins to doubt the chief.

When new evidence emerges it threatens to place the entire tribe in the hands of the Obsidians. As the last living descendant of the War God, Kindra's the only one who can depose the chief and save her tribe, but it will mean giving up the quest to rescue her sister, and the hope of ever becoming a named warrior.