Princess Dawnstar receives a vision that prompts her to lease land from an untrustworthy neighbor for the purpose of mining iron to replenish her nation's dwindling supply of steel, but politics prove to be as murky as the visions her ancestors showed her in the lake. Meanwhile, two hapless dreamers on the run discover that desperation makes for strange bedfellows and that the sea is not so easy to find as one might think.