The Tainted — Glenda Larke

I plunged into the darkness. When I emerged, I was on the other side of death, in a life about which I understood nothing. I was Ruarth Windrider. And I was human...

Ruarth Windrider had lived his entire life as a bird -- until the Aware swordswoman Blaze broke the curse that bespelled him and he had to learn to be human. But Ruarth's joy is short-lived when he realizes that his only love, the beautiful illusionist Flame, has been tainted by dunmagic. Subverted by a dark sorcerer's legacy, she is inexorably becoming the very evil she sought to destroy. The loyal Ruarth stays by her side, hoping to save Flame even as she plans a terrible campaign of conquest.

Blaze is also trailing her friend, intending to bring Flame to the physician, Kelwyn Gilfeather. He may hold the remedy that could halt Flame's descent into shadow. But in saving her, Gilfeather's cure could destroy all magic, changing the Isles of Glory forever...