Sometimes even the heroes get lost and like a fitful dragon over an endless sea, they give up hope of finding ground again. The prince might lose his steed. The dwarf might shave his beard. The princess might marry the villain. The nymph might hide her beauty. The prophet might reject the prophecy. The traveler might long for home. And in this, the first volume of tales ever to cross over to our shores from the fallen world of Faerphilly, they do. For this story takes place in the Dead Ages, a time when a mysterious evil produces a plague of bitterness and indifference that infects the hearts of the faer people, robbing them of hope and souring them to heroes. It is up to Fiere of the Black Blade, the peasant daughter of a sea nymph, to hold together a small group of cursed, traitorous, and lost travelers long enough to slay the beast at the end of the world and win back the kingdom from the deadness. That is, if she can find her way in a world that was made to be lost.