Vanyel is a young, teenage boy, who isn’t interested in the things usual for boys his age, much to his father’s, Lord Withen’s, contempt. Instead of learning how to fight, he prefers to enjoy fashion and taking care of his appearance. His father decides to sent him to take fighting lessons, and after some practice, Vanyel proves even better than his tutor. The tutor decides to lie about his success, and Lord Withen decides to send Vanyel to live with his aunt Savil, who is a Herald mage in the capital city of Valdemar.
Living with his aunt, Vanyel wants to learn to become a bard, but he is proven unsuccessful in his pursuit. Vanyel also learns, in his time with his aunt, the possibilities of same-sex love. After some consideration he realizes that he is also a homosexual, and develops a love connection with Tylendel, a Herald mage trainee of his aunt. Their love gets crushed by the sudden death of Tylendel’s twin brother, which makes Tylendel go mad and commit suicide.
Vanyel falls into deep depression, and his aunt decides to send him to Hawkbrother community to test his potential Herald gifts and to help him heal. After some time, Vanyel feels unworthy of the commitment and the Herald abilities, and decides to leave them. On his path, he stumbles upon a dragon terrorizing a village. Vanyel kills the dragon, but he was unable to rescue and old man due to his hesitation.
The novel ends with Vanyel facing off with an evil wizard who threatens to slay the entire village. Vanyel makes a decision to sacrifice himself to rescue the villagers by trying to channel as much of Herald magic as he can muster. Instead of dying, he wakes up to his aunt Sivil comforting and reassuring him of his worth and abilities.
