Alaric Braidwine, young mageborn bard in training, has no idea that he's about to become part of a legend. Traveling to Dun Gealach to learn magecraft under the Council of Mageborn, he finds himself drawn into a fiendish plot by a blood mage who wants to be a god.

From the first day, Alaric gets into more trouble than he ever dreamed possible. For when he is accused of smuggling a demon into Dun Gealach, he becomes the target of the High Mage's wrath. His only friends are the audacious and roguish Fenelon Greenfyn, the mystical Etienne Savala and her apprentice Shona. Yet even these powerful friends are not enough when Alaric is kidnapped and taken hostage by Tane Doran and his musically-inclined demon Vagner.

It seems that Alaric has something Tane wants…a key song learned from the famous bard Ronan Tey that tells where the legendary Dragon's Tongue lies. And Tane will stop at nothing to have it.

Suddenly, Alaric finds himself playing reluctant hero. For within him is more than the secret of a single song. He carries the soul of the master bard, Ronan Tey. And to make matters worse, Alaric wears the mark of the demon with whom he was forced to bond to save his own life.

Now, he is hunted by mageborn all over the known world, and unless he can stop Tane Doran and figure a way to free himself from the demon's gift, Alaric may not live long enough to write his own ballad…