Archer and Nelda Chitward moved their family from a small rural village to the bustling city of Haven.
But not everyone in the Chitward home was happy about this "improvement" in the family's position. Lavan, their middle son, had no desire to be a cloth-merchant, needle-worker, cloth-dyer, or anything related to his family's Guilds. Lan longed for the wild, unconfined woods of his boyhood home, for the friends with whom he had fished and hunted and played at being Herald's fighting the Karsites, or Guards capturing bandits. To make matters worse, his parents had enrolled him in an "exclusive" private school. It was a place where the arrogant older students were expected to keep discipline, and, unbeknownst to the school staff, did it through humiliation, physical abuse, and even floggings.
Several Sixth Form boys had prepared a special "lesson" for Lavan. Lying in wait after school, they dragged him to an abandoned classroom and prepared to flog him. As the lash fell, his ice-cold panic was vaporized by a white-hot rage that blazed up uncontrollably in Lavan's mind - and a Gift unlike any known in Valdemar was born in a fiery conflagration which Heralds and Healers alike would be hard-pressed to contain...
Valdemar faces war with its most powerful enemy, the kingdom of Karse. A young man emerges who has abilities never seen before - a Gift so terrifying that even the Heralds, Valdemar's magical protectors, fear him. Only three individuals are willing to accept the challenge of training the youth who will become the most notorious Herald in Valdemar's history: Lavan Firestorm.