A cataclysm has ruined much of the realm of Valana. Only a few fortified cities high in the mountains have survived. The lands below lay covered by a permanent barrier of mist and only huge, monstrous beasts ever rise up above the cloud bank.

In Avondale, the Earl’s son harbors a secret. Magic is blamed for the cataclysm and outlawed in the high mountain cities, but Tiberius longs to become a wizard. When he finally begins to practice magic, he knows his time in the wondrous city of Avondale is short, but where can he go? What lies beneath the mists that surround his mountaintop home? And if he ventures out of the city, how will he survive in a land that no one has ever returned from?