After a long civil war between the Northern Union and the Southern Confederation of Patria, the outnumbered northern army turned its own soldiers into Incarnates: men who could transform into monstrous mythical beasts. In the peace that follows, Nancy Schaal Bancroft, the daughter of one such Incarnate, sets out after the Beast Hunter who has been putting down the survivors one by one. When she finally catches up with him, what she learns about the Incarnates' lives forces her to reconsider everything she thought she knew.