Only artifacts remain of the once-great Elementals, and in the new era where all are equal in the eyes of magic, the ruling classes of disparate nations are eager to stoke war and unrest. Few pay mind to memories of the dragon age long gone. For ordinary citizens, the world is simple: Bel-nadin-sumi, a raider since boyhood, wants to pay tribute to his Goddess and protect his nation from outsider attacks; Ismene, a seer trapped in the cult of Selanaia, wants to see the world she can only read of in books; and Cyrus, an ex-soldier and cobbler, wants a quiet life with his lover, where his battle scars trouble him no further. At any other time, such desires would be enough, and these three would be free to live and die on their own terms. But the Earth does not forget, and the vicious struggle for dwindling sources of magic has blinded the power-hungry to lessons of the past—cruel revenge of the conquered looms, and those thought to be ghosts wake hungry from sugar-spun dreams…