It takes readers on a journey over two millennia and six continents, telling three powerful tales a thousand years apart, all of them converging in the same cave in the Belizean jungle. Braided together are the stories of a pair of teenage twins who ascend the throne of a Maya kingdom; a young American woman on a trip of self-discovery in Belize; and two dangerous charismatics vying for the leadership of a new religion and racing toward a confrontation...

In a novel set wholly in a new world, but inspired by modern Egyptian history, two young women--Nehal, a spoiled aristocrat used to getting what she wants, and Giorgina, a poor bookshop worker used to having nothing--find they have far more in common, particularly in their struggle for the rights of women and their ability to fight for it with forbidden elemental magic.