Argrave, the royal bastard of House Vasquer, went into his magic apprenticeship cruel and awkward, yet left it with a neat dignity and an acerbic wit. But beneath the veneer of self-assurance, the body’s new soul is wrestling with the dread of existence in a reality that once existed only in the pages of fantasy.

In the blink of an eye, a wiki editor’s deep and somewhat unhealthy understanding of a game becomes useful, usable knowledge when he inexplicably replaces the once-cruel royal bastard. Before he can start to push his frail body to use his deep understanding of the lore to handle the imminent apocalypse, or go off to stop an invasion, there’s a more personal task he needs to handle first.

His cousin has a knife in her hand and death in her eyes.

According to prophecy, the ninth-born child of Lord Orellen will have the sort of power that changes the world. But in a land ruled by magical families, no one welcomes the possibility of a dangerous new player. Fearful even of their allies, the Orellens come up with an extraordinary and deadly scheme to protect themselves.

If the most powerful people in the world wish to kill the ninth-born, they will have to find him or her first. And that's not going to be easy when the Orellens have called upon dark magic to create hundreds of heirs. The boys and girls are given new bodies, new names, and even new magical talents before they are scattered across the continent. Only one among them is the real ninth, but all of them will have to grow up in a world where they are fugitives.

Kalen, once fated to die, is now an Orellen heir in hiding. And he is determined to survive, even if he has to master his strange new powers to do it.