A powerful mage, twenty years ago Atrix Wolfe turned the King of the Wood into a terrible Hunter in order to force the invading Kardeth army, which threatened the kingdoms of Pelucir and Chaumenard, to retreat.

During the creation of the Hunter, the daughter of the King and Queen of the Wood, Saro (pronounced the same as "sorrow", a term which is a recurring motif of the book), disappeared.

Talis, the prince of Pelucir, is attending mage's school at Chaumenard when he discovers a book by an unknown author.

Though it is only a beginner's spellbook, he is strangely fascinated by it and takes it with him when his brother Burne, the king, summons him back to Pelucir.

Warned by a dream, Atrix Wolfe attempts to retrieve a spellbook he wrote shortly after the incident 20 years ago, but finds it has moved from where he hid it.

Though Talis has never been properly introduced to her, he intuits that the scullery maid is Saro, her muteness and ever-changing face being a spell which has kept the Queen from finding her.