Six years before the story begins, an accident with the cursed Sword of Baldanders transforms the sorceress Azalie into a dragon called Bloody August, and the Tower of Fang covers it up rather than help her. Orphen, once one of the Tower's top students under the name Krylancelo, walks away from it to hunt down a way to restore her, taking on apprentice mage Majic Lin and the headstrong noble Cleao Everlasting as traveling companions along the way.