Nicola Barber

"An alliance embarks on a dangerous journey to uncover the secrets of the distant past and save their world in this captivating, deeply visionary adventure from #1 New York Times bestselling thriller-master James Rollins. A gifted student foretells an apocalypse. Her reward is a sentence of death. Fleeing into the unknown she is drawn into a team of outcasts: A broken soldier, who once again takes up the weapons he's forbidden to wield and carves...

Four children have discovered that they have spirit animals, a rare bond between human and animal that has launched them on a quest to save their world. The team heads to the forests of Eura, where another Great Beast is hidden.

"Deep in the desert there sits a beautiful oasis, ruled by a monarch unlike any other in Erdas. His name is Cabaro, the Great Lion, and he reigns over a kingdom of animals, jealously guarding his golden talisman. No human has ever set foot on the Great Beast's territory. The journey to his oasis is impossible. As a team, Conor, Abeke, Meilin, and Rollan have achieved the impossible before. But now that team is broken--the friends scattered by a devastating...

As the Conquerors try to destroy Erdas, Meilin -- fed up with waiting and ready to fight -- sets off into enemy territory with her spirit animal, a panda named Jhi. Her friends Conor and Abeke aren't far behind ... but they're not the only ones.

Four children separated by vast distances all undergo the same ritual, watched by cloaked strangers. Four flashes of light erupt, and from them emerge the unmistakable shapes of incredible beasts - a wolf, a leopard, a panda, a falcon. Suddenly the paths of these children - and the world - have been changed for ever. Enter the world of Erdas, where every child who comes of age must discover if they have a spirit animal, a rare bond between human and...