While elven exiles struggle to survive in the distant kingdom of Khur, the elves remaining in Qualinesti face persecution, enslavement and extermination. Amidst great suffering and boundless evil, the leader of the rebellion appears - masked, nameless, wielding strange power - determined to cleanse this land of invaders. At this time, Kerianserai, the Lioness, a Kagonestian general and wife of the Speaker Gilthas, is magically transported from certain death in Khur in no less desperate situation in their former homeland. As Gilthas leads the elves through the trackless desert in search of a new home, Lioness battles merciless slavers and crosses paths with a mysterious masked Qualinestian revolutionary.