Nagaro and his friends Taru and Pavo are living secretly in a kind of voluntary exile within the territorial waters of Edrovir, waiting for the young Leithian who betrayed the attack on the Mahuk capital to find his conscience or his courage. Nagaro tries not to think about the past or the future, but when his six-year-old daughter is abducted from her island home, he knows he must go after her. He quickly finds himself plunged back into the maelstrom of Edrovir's capital where he must deal with a dying queen, his own impossible love, and a political storm that is rapidly brewing around a mysterious young man whom many Kelorin believe to be the son of the murdered King Tevren and heir of the near-legendary first king of Edrovir, Darion the Great.