C. J Cherryh

Cajeiri, the young son of the powerful leader of the Western Association, has become a target for forces bent on destroying his father's rule. For Cajeiri is the first "ateva" youth to have lived in a human environment and the first of his people to ever truly understand the so similar--yet so dangerously different--aliens who share his home planet and threaten the hidebound customs of his race.

After the civil war among the alien atevi has ended, Tabini-aiji, ruler of the Western Association, and his son, Cajeiri, return to Bujavid and face threats from rebels who remain loyal to the opposition.

A forgotten colony lost on a planet of wild beauty and unimaginable danger. A people held together by a renegade band of outcast heroes, called to their destinies by alien dreams. A world of Riders and Nighthorses, their minds linked together on the knife-edge of an abyss -- for even a singer Nighthorse can annihilate the human race. And now one Nighthorse has gone insane... --from back cover Stranded on a distant planet that abounds with fertile...