Twenty years after the Varishi horde conquered Eldoria, defeated King Theron signed a treaty surrendering 100 women a year, with every royal newborn girl registered for delivery to the orcs at sixteen. To save her granddaughter, the dying queen has the baby princess raised as a boy - Prince Kaelin. When the orcs demand a princess immediately, Kaelin renounces her title and follows her younger sister Lyra to the Obsidian Spire in her place. Sacred incense leaves her strange dreams and claw marks that heal overnight, revealing her rare susceptible constitution - the fated one prophesied to awaken Draven, the First Warlord trapped in beast form for a century by a curse cast by the scheming warlord Zorvath, who plots to seize the throne and feed the empire's hungering Blood Pool. As Zorvath moves to unmask her, Kaelin's kindness reaches the wounded heart inside the beast, and each step closer to Draven drags her deeper into a century-old web of murder, betrayal and forbidden desire.
