A mysterious wizard named Melcifer insinuates his way into the counsels of the renewed Mages, who chafe under being restricted to the ancient rules of the Order of Marvenda. The Knight distrusts him, but the Mages, and soon the King, are eating out of his hand. And then he counsels them to use dragons as a source of magic, and so deep does he hold them that Galan King shrinks not from sacrificing his own daughter. Then Melcifer tells him of a powerful King in the Valley of the West, a foe of Dragons, at the head of a new Order of Knights. Riding on dragons, Galan King lays seige to the Valley....only to find the King is the very Child he set free and who crowned him over Marvenda. Beset by dragon-lust and by old love, Galan, torn, betrays the King his old friend.