Sigga Ulfrsdottir hasn’t seen her father Ulf Svenson but a handful of times since he left her and her sister in Rusland to join the Varangian Guard. She can’t be sure he is even alive. Under the tutelage of Málfríðr, aged mother of Vladimir prince of the Rus and exiled seeress, she has learned to hone her skills as a seiðkona, walker of the Nine Worlds. But even the Norns will not reveal all they know about the twists and turns of the Wod and Orlog, the secrets to the fate of all men. Why does Sviatopolk the Accursed declare war on his three brothers, or why the strange Icelander Þórsteinn Dromund seeks her help in locating a man in the Varangian Guard in Constantinople.
Ulf has risen to the rank of primikērios in the Varangian Guard and runs a successful shipping business transporting goods from Mosynopolis to Constantinople. To this he entrusts Desislava while he is away. She is a Bulgarian, pulled from a line of captives destined for the brothels of Constantinople. Their connection is fragile, tenuous. She shares his bed and runs his business in all but name in the role of business partner. But it is his role in bringing her people under the boot of the Eastern Roman Empire that threatens to divide them.
When Ulf’s part in the blinding of Basil II’s myriad of Bulgarian captives comes to light, that fragile thread is severed and Desislava must seek her brothers who may have been among those unfortunate captives. On the way, she meets the Bogomils who take her in and shelter her. Yet she cannot come to terms with their heretical ways, even at the cost of her brother’s happiness.
A mysterious casket has made it into the hands of Ivan Vladislav, tsar of Bulgaria who, now that he has the throne he has always coveted, has a score to settle with Basil II. It isn’t long before Sigga’s role in the saga of the casket becomes apparent. And with it, the keys that are the only thing lying between Ivan and the absolute power he thinks the secrets within the casket will grant him.
The casket came to the hands of Ivan’s own cousin Theodora Kosara, the beautiful daughter of Ivan’s other arch enemy, his uncle Tsar Samuil who slew Ivan’s entire family n front of him. Yet even Theodora will not be able to stay the hand of fate that comes to her family, tearing it apart with tragic results.
When Þórsteinn falls afoul of first Ulf’s Varangians, and then a man who will only identify himself as Joachim of Korsun, it becomes apparent that the secrets are coming unraveled fast and only those who are able to keep ahead of the far reach of Adelfótita tou Lámprou – the Brotherhood of Lampros -will be alive in the end.