[2] A thousand years before the events of the novel, the evil, fire-breathing wyrm known as the Nameless One spread a draconic plague and was held at bay through daily human sacrifices.

A traveling Inysh knight named Sir Galian Berethnet intervened, in exchange for Cleolind's hand in marriage and the conversion of her people to his religion.

The Grief of Ages or Great Sorrow occurred five hundred years later, when five High Western dragons led by Fýredel created a draconic army of half-dragon monsters.

The writing is in limited third-person perspective, alternating between four point-of-view characters: the spy Ead Duryan, courtier Arteloth Beck, dragonrider Miduchi Tané (family name first), and alchemist Niclays Roos.

Ead Duryan is an outsider from the South who acts as a lady-in-waiting and protector to Sabran, but is loyal to the secret mage society of the Priory, which has its own view of the history of Cleolind, the Mother, and Sir Galian, the Deceiver.

When Tané comes upon an outsider and trespasser from the West, she throws her future into jeopardy by hiding him with Niclays Roos, an alcoholic alchemist searching for the secret to immortality who was banished from Sabran's court years ago.