Adrian Valen, at the age of twenty, was the youngest and most talented general in the Kingdom of Astrae. When rebellion broke out in the three duchies to the south, he led the royal cavalry through the snow, arriving suddenly at Silver Hills at a time when the enemy believed that reinforcements would take at least three days to reach. In that battle he captured three dukes, thus bringing an end to the conflicts in the south. Yet it was the enemy from the north who truly determined the course of his life: Cassian Raine, the supreme commander of the Duchy of Saven. At fifty-five years old, he had joined the army at seventeen and had been fighting for nearly forty years; he was a seasoned warrior who knew how to launch attacks but also how to preserve his forces and accept partial defeats.
