Gloveer Sibjaan (53), one of the Salt Barons of Vara has been having trouble this past year.

Matters at home are chaotic. Isbrun, Gloveer's eldest isn't shaping up as the heir he should have been and Gloveer's other 3 children have issues of their own their father has to deal with.

Even worse, dark clouds cover the horizon, and the abnormal rains are a damper on the salt trade. Shipments are irregular these days and there isn't much sympathy for a salt baron without money.

Even at the best of times, the hawks were never friends to the mercantile barons and naval faction. They become bolder and ruder as Vara's ally and neighbour Aaljau gears up for war against the So Empire once more. The front looks desperate this time, even Gloveer has to admit, as the So buy the full support of the recently formed Princips United to the North to support their campaign.

But even occupation of the Diostejan Peninsula by its historic foe might not be the true threat. As the skies change in Vara, so do the animals in the woods. Tales of leviathans surfacing in the seas reach Vara from far ranging fisherman. Worse, reports of Princips soldiers flinging fire from their hands lower the morale of the Varan council.

As Gloveer wonders how to keep his mercantile interests afloat until his second son can come of age, a letter arrives for him with a cryptic warning from a familiar name: his own.