1793. The nineteen-year-old Haeyke leaves his foster parents in Slovenia and goes to Norway, where his real family lives—the descendants of the evil sorcerer Tengel. Along the way, people don’t exactly receive the ugly, branded with the seal of evil Haeyke kindly, but he still finds a friend—a Viennese student named Peter. Their wanderings bring them to Transylvania, into the mysterious forest of Stregeshte, and into the domains of the enigmatic dark-haired beauty, Countess Ansióla, who invites young people to visit. The friends don’t realize that from the countess’s castle no one leaves alive.