In The Emperor, the first book in this trilogy, a young man called Audun discovered that he was the illegitimate son of Alberon, the Emperor of the North. Audun blamed the Emperor for the death of his mother and his grandparents. In Aldene Castle’s dungeons, he recovered a mysterious red stone which was all that remained of Oien, the ancient alchemist whose essence was locked away centuries earlier by the white magic of Alastair Munro. Now in this sequel, Audun has to harness the power of the stone and learn the secrets of the Staff of Power before he can claim his inheritance.