We plunge straight into the midst of a devastating clan feud between two realms - Hammerfell and Storn - just as Storn has struck what may prove Hammerfell's death stroke, setting the ancestral castle ablaze, slaying its lord, and sending its lady fleeing into the night with her infant sons Alastair and Conn.
Conn is separated from his mother that fateful night, but she and Alastair find sanctuary in Thendara City, among the wealthy and the laran-gifted. Yet Conn, too, survives, to be raised in secret among those who would see Storn overthrown. But it is not until Conn's laran manifests that the fates of the twins are finally, inextricably linked in a pattern which could bring a new beginning or total ruin to Hammerfell and its heirs ....