Outside the ancient ruins of a long-forgotten city, a small group of zealots prepare for an important ritual. They are known as the Apophists, and their desire to gain favor with their god a mysterious and powerful creature compels them to follow a strict set of guidelines; the dragon deity requires two men, a master and a student, to make a sacrifice of freedom and blood. Daven, a young man who was selected as the apprentice, has been forced to play a part in appeasing a god whom he neither believes in nor fears. Angered by his fate, Daven has resolved to expose his religion as a hoax and his teacher as a fraud; his plan, however, is ruined as a foreign army stages an untimely invasion of his village, forcing enslavement upon Daven s people. Now, faced with the duty of saving his followers, Daven is thrust into a battle with people whom he doesn t understand, and an unintended discovery brings him face-to-face with Apophis himself a creature more amazing and terrifying than he could ever have imagined."