Princess Gan is back home in Nadvaaryn after her epic adventure with the Brightstorm twins in the north. But her uncle is ill, so she must seek out a cure in the deserts outside the capital city. Her desperate hopes rest on finding a serpent in the sands, a creature everyone else believes to be an ancient myth.

But it turns out that she's not the only one trying to get to it; dark forces are competing for power in the Wide, and as her adventure unfurls, Gan faces difficult choices in working out what she's willing to do and who she's willing to protect.