Corus is an environment of humans, but also of strange animals and supernatural animals. It is a world of marvelous power and of a few people who are Talented enough to utilize them. Alucius, the hero of the tale, is one particular person. In Legacies we saw how he grew from a Talented kid on a lonely Nightsheep ranch in the Iron Valleys to a proficient soldier who used his wits and his Talent to become the first ever to escape military enslavement in the neighboring country of Madrien. Right now captain of the Twenty- about Darknesses 1st Company, the youngest official of his rank in the Militia, he must today face new problems, both armed forces and marvelous.

Corus continues to be fragmented because the collapse of its old magic-powered civilization. A would-be conqueror has somehow revived sorcerous creatures of legend to aid in his crusade to reunite the continent under his rule. The Iron Valleys are compelled into an alliance with the Lord-Protector of Lanachrona, as well as the Twenty-first can be dispatched to stand against the invaders. Neither the officers above him nor the men under him understand it, but Alucius’s Talent is their only expect victory, or even survival.