The griffins come to Feierabiand with the early summer warmth, riding the wind out of the heights down to the tender green pastures above the village of Minas Ford. The wind they bring with them is a hard, hot wind, tasting of red dust and hot brass, with nothing of the gentle Feierabiand summer about it. Fire falls from their wings, and below the path of their flight, red sands turn the hills to blazing desert ...

Kes, collecting healing herbs in the hills above the village, watches the griffins arrive. Stunned by their beauty, unable to find words to describe them, she says nothing about them at all. Then a tall man with a griffin's fiery shadow steps into Minas Ford, seeking a girl who possesses a gift for healing, setting into her hands magic, fire, and an impossible choice.

Bertaud, close friend of the king of Feierabiand, knows nothing of griffins, of the desert, of the magic that drove them from their own land into his. When word comes of red sand and hot winds above Minas Ford, his king sends Bertaud to investigate. On his road waits a powerful griffin, a burning wind, and an impossible choice.

The griffins did not ride their desert wind into Feierabiand by their own choice. But here they will make their stand against their enemies. Kes and Bertaud, with nothing in common but an affinity for fire, will have to choose whether to set themselves alongside the griffins or against them, with their own lives and land in terrible peril no matter which choice they make.