Pater Nos, founder of the Mosaic School for Senchai Wizards, sends his beloved protege, the recently Grand and very beautiful, Verdor. This is, after all, what the school does, sends out graduate Wizards to solve problems within the five kingdoms that endow the school.

When she arrives in the Giants' valley, Verdor finds that a clandestine evil wizard, Putris Darkin has laid siege to their Kingdom. The River Grune, which sustains them and their industry of making soap has almost dried. Famine is near.

Verdor’s first problem is to convince the Giants that they will soon be attacked by an army of Pokers, hideous slave creatures that no one has seen. How can Verdor convince the Giants that they must destroy their forests, century old trees, the basis of their economy? If they don’t do as she says, they won’t survive the week.

In other words, wipe away their children’s futures to save themselves - on the word of an outsider.

No one among the Giants believes that Putris Darkin is any more than “...a dark tale told to keep vexing children abed at night”

The young Verdor’s dilemma is to defeat what can’t be killed, to outfox an ancient and all powerful evil and to reconcile a shocking discovery: Her destruction, not the Giants’, is what Putris Darkin cunningly awaits.

Verdor is brilliant, powerful and as naive as she is determined. Her only chance to defeat Putris Darkin is to do what He will never expect:   Kill her lover.