Routed from her glacial palace in the Frozen March, Salamasca has fled to the Eastern Kingdom to lick her wounds and gather her strength once more. The Kingdom of Illyander had earned a temporary peace with its victory over her ice orc armies, but while the Ice Queen still lives, she remains a threat to all who walk Aronshae. No one knows this better than the Ironwright twins, Sasha and Katya, blessed and cursed by the Great Mother with the power of her avatar, Akor'shi-kai. With this costly gift, the Snowhaven sisters have the mystical strength to oppose Salamasca, who has upset the scales of Aronshae's balance. Jared, Talas, and the Ironwright twins journey to the mysterious East, a land filled with strange peoples and even stranger customs, to end Salamasca's threat once and for all. In the meantime, the Ice Queen has reunited with her old mentor, Luzige, and her reanimated servant, Roane, to raise an army of Easterners to crush Illyander and bring all of Aronshae under her heel. Gathering allies and enemies along their way, the Illyanders hope to finally destroy the Empress of Ice, knowing all the while that victory or defeat will mean death for the twins as they are consumed by the power of Akor'shi-kai. Will the Illyanders be in time to stop the Ice Queen's rise to power or are they only rushing to their deaths at the hands of an even more powerful adversary? As if matters hadn't become complicated enough, the dragons have returned.