A young man by the name of Edward Faroc finds himself in the midst of a feud between villages on the eastern border of the Empire’s most impoverished province, the Ierondirian Expanse. From this state of senseless strife, Edward is conscripted into the Imperial Army and leaves behind his home, friends and ailing parents. Though severed from his early life, Edward and his newly found brothers-in-arms grow close together as they battle the Osterian Cabal in the Southern Expanse and rescue numerous travelers and Ash’allan refugees.  The Empire, however, teeters on the brink of collapse as various unruly nobles act on their ambitions. In a bid to avoid the coming crisis, Emperor Alexius Lonwer orders his brother to march west and bring the elves to heel and return with much needed loot and slaves while his various agents throughout the Empire act on his command to subdue or outright eliminate malcontents before it is too late. While taking part in the western campaign, Edward befriends the young Crown Prince Harold and rises through the ranks of the army, eventually being hailed as a hero of his people and earning the favour of the emperor himself. Everything comes at a price, however, as he is forced to come to terms with the loss of many of his friends and sees the true face of the world around him. Moreover, the invasion itself forces Edward to choose between his sense of morality and that of duty and he returns home a battered man only to find his village nigh deserted and the Empire he sacrificed so much for asking yet more of him. From start to finish, a seemingly irrelevant young man sits at the centre of the events that will decide the future of the Empire of Phaleynir for decades to come, yet one might wonder how much can one single man force the cruel hand of fate to relent from tearing his world asunder.