Tomboy Aurora or Rorie has she's always been called, determined long ago that she would never be like the other girls in her village. While they were looking at the new dresses brought in by traveling merchants, she was sneaking past the fences that enclosed her small town and begging the guards to teach her how to fight off the beasts that supposedly lived in the forest beyond. When her older brother leaves to the capital of their kingdom, and there only being enough escorts for a couple people Rorie is determined that she must get out of the town some other way and reach the heart of the kingdom herself. When a strange man ride into her town alone, that following night Rorie is amazed that he was completely unscathed and with admiration and new confidence she promptly informs him that he would be her escort to the King's palace. Though shocked by this demand, young, romantic Aurek is swift to agree. When they finally reach the wall to the great land within an unexpected visitor shows up. A girl named Estrid who has been Prince Aurek's betrothed since the day they were born. She is everything Rorie isn't but as she is determined to stick by Aurek's side and as Rorie still needs Aurek as an escort back home, Rorie is forced into letting her tag along. On climbing the wall they find something completely unexpected. The flags are all torn down and the entire place is empty.