Kalan, a sleight-of-hand swindler, is unable to convince himself that he has the power to save the world from a devastating drought. How can he recover a lost artifact stolen by a chimera controlled by a mad wizard bent on becoming the next Emperor of Aerolia?
The son of the most famous man in the world, legendary Crown Breaker Ghreggry Laurelbane, Kalan wants to live life in obscurity and try to forget that fateful day when he ended his father's life. When a tribal woman and a university man come looking for a wizard to help them bring back the rain, he must face his worst nightmares.
Amad-Dûr, the Magistrate of Yuln, runs a clean city and wants to keep it that way to ascend to the throne as Emperor of Aerolia. Kalan's swindling ways threaten that plan. As Kalan struggles to make enough money to go north in search of his mother, he must elude the city guards and the ire of the Magistrate. Amad-Dûr has another problem, he needs someone with even the simplest of training in the arcane arts to perform a spell to control the chimera that has stolen a harp that calls the rain.
Kalan's choice is clear, or so he thought. He must help the Magistrate with his spell or his friends will certainly die slowly and painfully. In doing so, he might doom the whole world to an arid death controlled by a tyrannical emperor who commands a chimera.