Corrupted and warped into an evil place by Mornhavon the Black during the Long War, the realm has been sealed away for a millennium behind the D’yer Wall, a magically enhanced barrier that has been neglected by the humans and the Elt for centuries.

Upon her return to Sacor City, she finds her role as a knight draws her into in court life more than she’d like, yet she rarely sees King Zachary and his betrothed Lady Estora.

King Zachary is furious when Captain Lauren Mapstone, the commander of the Green Riders and his closest confidant, selects Karigan as one of the members of the Sacoridian portion of the Blackveil expedition because of her past experiences with the forest and the Eletians.

Their argument is overheard by the ambitious Lord Richmont Spane, who realizes that the King’s love for a commoner could jeopardize his cousin Estora’s upcoming marriage and spoil his own plans to expand his power in the kingdom.

Karigan and the rest of the Sacoridian expedition – which consists of two Sacoridan soldiers, Ard, and Green Riders Lynx and Yates – rendezvous with six Eletians at the Wall on the day of the spring equinox as planned.

Descendants of The Second Empire, led by the necromancer Grandmother, enter Blackveil Forest before the Sacoridians and Eletians to follow Mornhavon’s orders to awaken the Sleepers in the present.

The Sleepers have been largely protected by the spirit of their Queen, but after their long confinement in the tainted forest, a few of the sleeping Eletians have been corrupted into evil, mindless, dark creatures.

Focused only on denying Mornhavon the thing he desires most, she destroys the mirror mask and tumbles through space and time, sending the surviving members of the expedition out of Blackveil in the process.