Lindír is a prince, or he would be. But a curse of birth--to be born a dragon to human parents--sentences him to a short, ugly life locked away in the dungeons beneath the castle. Freedom comes in the strangest of forms, though. In this case, a brooding knightess from a far distant land. She takes pity on Lindír, but divided loyalties mean that once he is free, he must fend for himself. The world in which Lindír finds himself is both grander and more frightening than anything he could have foreseen. Trolls and warring bands of knights lurk around every bend, and the machinations of sorcery are a constant danger. But no troll, no dragonslayer, no witch, no dark and ancient thing which dwells in the far underground can match the danger posed by Lindír's greatest challenge: the scars encircling his own tormented heart.