Tsia had dreamed all her life of becoming a guide, attuned to her world through a telepathic gate to another lifeform. And now, after years of preparation, she had at last taken the guide virus that would mutate her body to create the gate she so desperately craved.

But the longed-for gate brought Tsia only pain. For the lifeform her virus had chosen for her was the one lifeform that was forbidden—the felines, who had scouted the planet for the First Droppers and, in exchange, been promised their freedom forever from human domination. Tsia could hear the cats, and sense them telepathically—but by the laws of the Guide Guild and the First-Landing Pact, she could never call to the cats, never speak with them, never approach them.

But then capture and imprisonment, torture and slavery took the place of an empty future. Suddenly Tsia's only hope lay with her gate— and once she had touched the cats, there would be no turning back...