An anonymous young soldier finds himself in the midst of a battle where his forces are outnumbered. His commander, a young woman, tells him that the Orders require him to use all his magical abilities as well as his fighting skills to turn the conflict around. When the young man resists summoning the power that he possesses for fear of killing noncombatants in the town, his commander enters his mind and forces his compliance. The young man will never forgive his commander for this.

Across the sea, a 13-year-old girl named Tisaanah Vytezic watches as enslavers enter her village, intent on capturing everyone and taking them to work in the mines—a death sentence. Tisaanah bargains for a better fate, showing that she is a magic Wielder by producing an illusion of butterflies, but the invaders are hesitant because the girl isn’t a full-blooded Valtain: “Her skin and hair [were] totally white, completely sapped of color, while splotches of what would have been her natural deeper coloring crawled across her skin. One green eye, one white. Streaks of dark mingling in silver hair” (7). Her appearance marks her as one of the Fragmented, who possess the same magical abilities as the Valtain.