Daring heroics, narrow escapes, passionate affairs ... these things just don't always come easily to a weak, wrinkled, arthritic mole rat like Drolen. Blessed, or perhaps cursed, by an unerring instinct for human politics, Drolen returns to a place of past regrets, the city of Orem, where he begins to groom young Nua to claim the throne left open by her father's untimely death.