Presents a biography of the first black baseball player to play in the major leagues when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Also traces the history of all-black baseball teams.

Tavi is ostensibly serving as a page but secretly training to become a spy. When the first lord falls to a sorcerous attack, Tavi and his closest friends and teachers must conceal the lord's condition lest the realm fall into civil war. In the Calderon Valley, a long--forgotten horror awakens and heads for the heart of Alera, while Tavi's closest relative, the newly appointed Steadholder Isana, faces at least two sets of assassins.

In the realm of Alera, where people bond with the furies--elementals of earth, air, fire, water, wood, and metal--15-year-old Tavi struggles with his lack of furycrafting. As his homeland erupts in chaos--when rebels war with loyalists and furies clash with furies--Tavi's simple courage will turn the tides of war.