When the young slave Muus picked up the blue shard, he couldn't know it would change his life. Becoming the Shardheld finally freed him from his hated serfdom, but it bound him to a goal as awesome as it was dire. Hunted by false Jarl Rannar's murderous soldiers, he started on a perilous journey through the snowy forests of the Norden to far away Falrom, the lost Burning Lands, where the mighty Kalmanir stone waited for him and the magic of the shard. Not only Muus was affected by the shard's implacable will. His former master Kjelle, youthful heir to a rich mining estate; Birthe, teen widow, wisewoman and mighty huntress; little Hraab with his strange, unworldly wisdom; deposed boy prince Ottil, and many others followed him south. Afraid for the lives of his friends, Muus escaped all but the girl who loved him, and together the two traveled to fiery Falrom, seeking the Kalmanir before the enemy found them. Should Jarl Rannar gain possession of the shard, it would mean the return of the cruelly insane Gods Before and their world of primordial horror, and Muus was resigned to die to prevent that from happening. Meanwhile, his friends weren't prepared to give up, either, and so the race was on. To Falrom