The dragons have left Coronnan and taken their magic with them. Magicians who can gather dragon magic can combine their talents to increase their power exponentially to impose ethics and honor upon any solitary practitioner.

King Darville is tied to the dragons. He endures a painful wound to his dominant left arm that will not heal. He and his senior magician fear that he shares the festering burn because Shayla, the last breeding female dragon suffers an identical wound.

The task to return the dragons to Coronnan falls to the apprentice magician who was previously thought too stupid to have a name. So, when he exhibits a strong magical talent using nearly forgotten solitary techniques, he is brought into the Commune and given the right to choose his own name. He chooses a grand name of a legendary warrior from ancient times: Yaake.

Now he has to live up to it.

His convoluted path to find the dragons leads him to isolated kingdom of Se Lennica, ruled by a man known as The Simeon, Coronnan's greatest enemy. The Simeon has stripped the land of its resources and now faces floods, landslides, and relentless climate change. He has usurped power from his young and naive wife, the true queen of the land who controls the lacemaking industry, Se Lennica's only export.

Shayla cannot fly to freedom until Yaake can find a cure for her wound. He has to do it before his king dies and before catches up to him and the young woman whom Yaake loves but has been designated a sacrifice in the Simeon's last, desperate attempt to magically restore the land.

Can Yaake and his new allies find a way out without magic? More importantly, can he aid his friends and the love of his life before they fall victim to The Simeon's cruel magic that draws power from blood and pain?