#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In this, the extraordinary conclusion of the ice-age epic series, Earth’s Children®, Ayla, Jondalar, and their infant daughter, Jonayla, are living with the Zelandonii in the Ninth Cave. Ayla has been chosen as an acolyte to a spiritual leader and begins arduous training tasks.
 
Whatever obstacles she faces, Ayla finds inventive ways to lessen the difficulties of...

After their epic journey across Europe, Ayla and Jondalar have reached his home, the Ninth Cave of the Zelandonii, the old stone age settlement in the region known today as southwest France. Jondalar's family greet him warmly, but they are initially wary of the beautiful young woman he has brought back, with her strange accent and her tame wolf and horses.

Here is the saga of a people who call themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear: how they lived, the animals they hunted, the great totems they revered, and Ayla, the girl they found and raised, who was not like them. To the Clan, Ayla's fair looks make her different. Although Ayla is clearly a member of the Others, she is gradually accepted into the family circle. But there are those who would cast her out for her strange, threatening ways.

Ayla struggles to find a balance between her duties as a new mother and her training to become a Zelandoni -- one of the Ninth Cave community's spiritual leaders and healers.

Forced to leave the Clan and her young son, Ayla sets out alone to travel the frigid steppes until she finds the valley of horses. Unable to find people like herself, the Cro-Magnons, she settles there and seeks friendship elsewhere.