In the days of the Onotrian Empire, two centuries before the rule of King Christian and the sorceress Gwendolyn, a young husband and father named Edmund living in a small village named Olland confronts a terrible curse that arises from the East. The world he knows comes to a devastating end. Accompanied by a young girl named Katia whose life was also ruined, he embarks on a quest to destroy that curse from the contintent of Cueldea.

In the city of Suedeche lives an urchin girl of the streets named Deirdre who learns of the coming of the Seven Sisters, Pilgrims of Mother Goddess. She travels to the city of Scaendel to seek out the Pilgrim Sofia and beg her to teach her the powers of a witch. Deirdre becomes embroiled in the politics of the palace that threaten the peace of the land, the lives of those caught up in it, and the very existence of the empire itself.