The dragon Anwyn--who has lain for three years in deathlike sleep in a grave of rock and black coal is freed by the cataclysm that concluded Requiem for the Sun. Disoriented and confused, she remembers only two things: the person who trapped her in dragon form and locked her in a rocky grave--Rhapsody; and an all-encompassing desire to wreak vengeance. Meanwhile, Achmed, the Firbolg king, resumes rebuilding the his shattered home, while a guild of merciless assassins set about taking revenge on him for the killing of their leader. A horribly deformed but magical being finds its way through a carnival of freaks to the palace of an evil despot, who sees in it the potential to be the instrument by which his plans of conquest and brutal domination of a continent will be realized. With the rise of new leaders, good and evil, the long-awaited birth of the Child of Time, the dark plans of assassins and rulers, a confrontation that shakes the relationship of the Three, and a battle to the death between two dragons of unimaginable elemental power, the seeds of chaos are planted for a war that will, by its end, consume half of the world.