It is the first book in The Stone Dance of the Chameleon trilogy, which concerns the harrowing experiences of the young and inexperienced heir to a ruling dynasty who is suddenly taken from his protected childhood and thrust into a cruel society where he must fight for his family honour, his position and his life.

His writing process is to create successive draft outlines for a book, each developing the actions and interaction of the characters and themes in the story in greater detail.

His son has been brought up with only his father and immediate household, which though extensive is only a pale shadow of the extravagance and excesses of the court life normally experienced by a ruling Lord.

A delegation of lords comes to their island, asking that Suth will return to the capital and oversee the election of a new emperor, since the current one is dying.

It is death for a common man to look upon the face of such a lord, and Carnelian has several sharp lessons in the laws of caste which govern this society.