A son of a forest dwelling people, Yhalen knows little of the world outside the ancestral forest, until he is captured by a band of ogres on a slave-taking mission. Only grim tales of the barbaric giants had reached the forest, but Yhalen soon learns that even the darkest fireside story only hinted at the brutality of these Northern warriors. He discovers the meaning of true fear at their hands, and only the awakening of ancient magic saves him from destruction. Surviving ogre viciousness, he finds himself given to Bloodraven, the half ogre, half human war leader as a slave. Yhalen, refusing to bend, soon pays the price for offending prickly ogre pride. But Bloodraven is no mindless, violent ogrish beast. Bloodraven has an agenda and Yhalen finds himself drawn in the wake into human and ogre politics, into bloodshed and cruelty and into the forbidden magic that is damnation in the eyes of his own people, but which might mean the difference between death and salvation.

Illya has always been different - fey, quiet, and cursed with the ability to see the lingering spirits of the dead. A younger son of a younger son from a backwater mountain province, he is a nobody in the king's army until he comes to the notice of the Prince Knight himself, the spoiled, stubborn heir to the kingdom of Aldania. Caught up in a war that has raged for generations between Aldania and a neighboring kingdom, captured and imprisoned by a mad king, Illya and Prince Ashe discover a history of lies, betrayal and assassination, and the ghostly truth beneath it all. Opposites in every way, they forge a common bond that pain, war and betrayal will test to the very limit of their strength.
To end a dynasty of madness and suffering, Illya must embrace the ability he has always hated, and look to the dead for answers.

Kidnapped by creatures out of folklore, Alex and Victoria find themselves stolen to a land beyond imagination and under the power of creatures both deadly and beautiful. Will the seductions of this new world destroy their love and doom newfound alliances, or is their presence, mortals from a world without magic the salvation of this forgotten, fey realm?