The world of "The Sleeping Dragon" and "The White Blade" thirty years on. New heroes have been born, but the old ones are not yet ready to be put out to pasture. The time has come when the World will need all its heroes.
A trading vessel of the Northern Empire perishes in flames. Only two northerners manage to survive: the light-born Danila and the helmsman Ruzh. To stay alive, they must travel thousands of miles through a land where a recognized foreigner faces an agonizing death. And the northerners do not know that they have become part of a conspiracy whose goal is the assassination of the Emperor, a series of coups, and the seizure of power across three continents.