In the kingdom of Crotheny, two young girls play in the tangled gardens of the sacred city of the dead where, fleeing an imaginary attacker, they discover the unknown crypt of a legendary, ancestral queen. In the wilds of the forest, while investigating the mass slaughter of an innocent family, the king's forester comes face-to-face with a monstrous beast found only in folk tales and nightmares.

Meanwhile, travelling the same road, a scholarly young priest begins his education in the nature of the evil that festers just beneath the surface of a seemingly peaceful realm. For the royal family is facing a betrayal that only sorcery can accomplish. And now, for three beautiful sisters, for a young man elevated to knighthood, and for for countless others, a darkness is emerging to shatter all that once seemed certain, familiar, and good.

Numerous separate destinies will become entangled as malevolent forces stalk the land -- and the Briar King, that primeval harbinger of death, has awakened from his slumber.