
Fleeing from Xaxian Warriors, Will and the others stumble into the Sacred Valley - a place of startling natural beauty which seems to magically grant their every desire.

Leon finds his old Professor and embarks on the life of study and learning the troubles in Kale interrupted; Drogo finds his father, who he has long believed to have been murdered by the Warriors, and begins to be inducted into the ways of the wolf tribe; Aruna finds Ortlan, the Arborean she was once to marry; Vara awakes to find herself crowned Queen of a happy, united Kale; and Will, the reluctant hero, settles down contentedly to farming - all he has ever wanted - with the woman of his dreams at his side.

As Kalem desperately flees the evil Alter-Kalem the band’s dreams begin to turn horribly sour ... and it is only when William is actually laid out on an altar and apparently about to be sacrificed by his own mentor, that Drogo awakes to the danger and persuades the others they must abandon these addictive, seductive illusions and return to the real and difficult world.