Highschooler Avery Warren is torn from his home and into the world of Aanda by the terrifying, dragon-like Wurms. Before they can reclaim the power in his blood, stolen from them by his ancestor, he's freed-allegedly, anyway. His rescuers are human, and still celebrate what his ancestor did to free them from the Wurm empire twelve hundred years ago; in fact, he'll be doing that again, please and thank you.

Though the people around him are kinder than the Wurms (mostly), it's clear to Avery that in return for saving his life they expect him to master the power in his blood and use it to exterminate the last of the Wurms' dying empire. If he can actually master that power. If the Wurms don't find him. If the warring factions among the humans don't tear him to pieces first.

Avery's not the only one stuck in a web of everyone else's plans for him. Back in the last surviving city of Wurms, a talented alchemist named Rilus is named heir to the throne-a move nobody was expecting, not even Rilus. He'll have to prove his worth, to both himself and the disenfranchised nobility of the old Empire, if he wants to survive his promotion. If he wants his baby sister to ever get to see the outside world. If he wants to get back what was stolen and save his kind from extinction.

The fate of two civilizations, it seems, rests in the hands of a teenage boy-if he can keep those hands attached to his body long enough to use them.