Asrathiel, once Astariel, grand daughter of the Stormlord of Ellenhall, has come of age and received her title of weathermage. As she sets out into the world, her happiness is marred only by her inability to wake her mother from the enchanted sleep that holds her captive, and by curious visits from a perverse yet intriguing faerie-creature.

But rumblings of discontent have begun to circulate in the Four Kingdoms of Tir: the bandits known as the Marauders are attacking the populace with greater frequency, and taxes are being raised to fund the defence against them. Then the people begin, seemingly unprovoked, to turn against the weathermasters, whom they have always held in such high esteem...