When the conflict of the two great lands rose to its peak old enemies of both nations, antagonists to every race and creed flourished under the fear cultivated by both sides. But when their world was in turn bathed in Balefire the villains of legend went quiet, their food exhausted, and their homes in ashes they slept. Waiting for a day when the invisible fires would subside and the embers of life would rise from the ground. Captive in a Changeling cocoon a descendant of these enemies is freed to face a new world, a world of violence and hate, a world of slavery and starvation, a world full of opportunity.