From childhood, Alain had known that he had been promised to the Church. Fate, however, chose differently, when the
monastery he was headed for, is destroyed by Eika savages and he is instead enlisted to serve the nobleman who rules his region. Through his uncanny ability to control the sinister hounds of Count Lavastine, he gains status, but also attracts the notice of Biscop Sabella, the deceptively amiable henchwoman of Sabella, countess also and sister of King Henry himself. As Sabella prepares to again challenge her brother''s right to the throne, Alain is also caught up in the threat of civil war.
Liath, another motherless child, grew up believing her life, and that of her learned
father, to be constantly at risk. Schooled in the forbidden arcane texts dealing with mathematics, astrology and sorcery, she becomes vulnerable to the lecherous attentions of a high-bred priest when her father dies. She is rescued from his cruel manipulations by the intervention of the enigmatic Wolfhere, who recruits her to his elite order of King''s Eagles. This, however, places her in the sphere of the magnetic half-human Prince Sanglant, leader of the King''s Dragons, and also into the heart of the fierce invasion thrust of the Eika.