Amra and Holgren's comfortable - if decidedly unexciting - life is rudely interrupted when Amra receives an old enemy's head in a box. A longstanding debt calls her back home to Bellarius, the scene of many childhood horrors she would much rather forget about. Bellarius must be saved from utter destruction and civil war. After Amra suddenly vanishes, Holgren crafts a plan that teeters between impossibility and insanity. But first, he'll have to deal with three separate armies vying for control of Bellaria, all of which view him as either a threat, an inconvenience, or a potential tool. Oh, the things we do for love.