The year is 1600, and while most of the eastern corner of Europe is in turmoil, at the edge of the principality of Ardeal, the village of Vallaya thrives. At its center is the shop of a wizened apothecary, who has built his business on the sale of one particularly valuable medicine, a potent elixir distilled from a prey unique to the forests of Vallaya, the vampire prey. As an ambitious magistrate negotiates a peace between human and vampire, a young novice plunges into the mysteries and secrets of the vampire coven and their potent female leader. So begins to unravel her terrible, underground world.