Kaemen and Ginna both grow up in the palace, the former, under the witch's spell, becoming willful, cruel and selfish, while the latter is a blank slate whose passive innocence leads Tharanodeth to prefer him to his own son.

After three years the boy and girl flee Ai Hanlo and Kaemen's increasingly capricious tyranny, which is ushering in an apocalypse of blood and darkness.

They fall in with a merchant caravan and later a ship crewed by mystical warriors as the darkness spreading from the city taints and changes the world, engulfing humanity and awakening long-buried monsters and horrors.

He reaches the goal of his quest, an otherworldly grove of light watched over by the spirit of the Goddess's mother, and learns the secret of the horror overtaking the world and his own origin and purpose.

His destiny brings him into direct conflict with the doomed Kaemen and the malign vision of his witch-creator, with the outcome of the struggle to decide the fate of the world and the nature of the deity that will preside over its next phase.

Schweitzer subsequently explored the age prior to the events of the book in a cycle of short stories collected in Echoes of the Goddess (2013), which serve as a prequel to the novel.