Lord Aroc rules the world, giving the gift of immortality only to his Citizens, but a change is at hand, signaled by the dancing of the Northern Lights. Now, a young woman's choice to plant a small seed will determine world dominion. That young woman is Vareka, a Citizen working for Lord Aroc as Watcher for the villagers of Eryahsa. Such villagers live apart from the City, and are ultimately absorbed to feed the City's energy. As heavy solar flares disrupt the City's technology, the Northern Lights cause villagers to recall ancient stories of the Dreamers - spirit beings who would someday return. Then, an old man in Eryahsa tells Vareka she is inheritor of a task that only she, daughter of a Dreamer and a human, can complete. She bears a locket handed down from mother to daughter for ages uncounted, and the seed it holds must be planted if the Dream is to continue. Vareka must choose her path, with no guarantee of success: Either she will take her friends on a perilous journey to find the place and time of planting, or she will accept Aroc's rule, allowing him to remake the world, in his own image.