Tamlyn has always considered that his life in the Citadel is a good one. Since he was born he has been taught that the High Lord Zerac is a caring and kindly ruler, and he looks forward to serving him in the future.
Chance encounters with Lyddy and Merla as he starts his final year in the Academy begin to force Tamlyn to think again about these views. He discovers that the surface appearance of peace and justice he knows really hides a different and cruel reality.
With his friend, Hallam, he decides he must work to change things. It's a decision that takes him out of his easy life and into dangerous and life-threatening clashes with Zerac but he persists through it all, in the process changing himself and taking the land he loves out of its enforced isolation.