In the Overture, the nameless warrior's life and departure from Trethbiekilon, homeland of the Onnpeople, was depicted. She received her people's creation narrative from her mother, a comforting piece of advice from her father, and an angry reprimand from a captain of Larunkat- a colossal foreign state- which invaded the city, killed her family, and placed her into bondage. During this time, she saw that the captain was tended to by a lieutenant with green and white eyes.

  The first story shifted the setting to Goal, a region containing the "New Wild", where roads are unreliable and strange happenings are common. It centered on Key, a man just of age being taught Goalish healing practice (‘firework') in the river-valley of the Sixbraids people. A group of Laruns comprised of ‘Freemen' – an unusual breed of soldiers – entered his village and killed his father, shortly before the nameless warrior arrived there. She had grown and become a powerful fighter, accompanied by an invisible servant named The Bell.

  Key asked the nameless warrior to save his people, and she did so, just before Key and an offering of men could be sacrificed by the soldiers. Their ways parted briefly after this, before Key was forced to flee the Sixbraids. He was driven into The Wild, nearly starved, and attacked by a strange beast before their paths crossed again. Again the warrior saved him, and offered to help Key find a new village where he could live. Key accepted.

  After this tumult in their former lives, the two foreigners assumed new names. Key, never having introduced himself to the nameless warrior, told her that his name was Fragile, a play-name given to him by the other boys of the Sixbraids, rather than Key. The nameless warrior took on the name "Wander", from "wandering star": a sobriquet commonly applied to former warriors of her order who travel the countryside as mercenaries.

  The foreigners travelled to a Couth (a Larun fort) called Firmen, where a garrison of Freemen was under nightly siege by another monster. There, Wander assumed the identity of "Hill-measure", presenting herself as a warrior of Larunkat's. After spending the night, and refusing the entreatments of the Freemen, Wander agreed to help destroy the beast in exchange for a reward.

  From Firmen, the foreigners travelled through several villages. First was the village of Our, where Wander bested several Goalish bandits. After searching for their lair in the wilderness, Wander and Fragile were captured, and received warmly, by the bandit Bestplace, whose life she had spared.

  Second was the village Sunwood, where all had been pressed into service by a Larun mine. On the way to the mine, Wander and Fragile travelled with a group of itinerant courtesans, rescuing them them from a group of Goalish highwaymen. For this boon, the mine's proprietor housed Wander for the night; when the highwaymen returned to attack the mine, she turned on her hosts and murdered them. Sunwood's inhabitants were freed.

  The last village the foreigners would visit was Withoutwind, where a curse was wreaking starvation. An experiment carried out by Fragile wounded him grievously, but revealed its source. Wander attempted to heal him, but failed, and he died. His revival only took place after the intelligence responsible for the curse brought him back to life.

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  Fragile's unnatural resurrection caused Wander to consider killing him. She chose not to, and the two continued forward into the Larun town of Partplant. Wander, short of cash and seeking to discard her companion, joined with a pair of Larun hunters named Joyborn and De, the latter of whom had green and white eyes. Ignorant of her identity and sent to apprehend her, their sights had been set on a different bandit, who she sought the reward for.

  The bandit's soldiers, aided by a powerful spirit like The Bell, destroyed the Laruns' in a fight, incapacitated Joyborn, and captured Fragile. De and Wander hunted down the bandit to his lair and slew him. After returning to the town, before De set out into the Wild, Wander discovered his identity as the Larun captain's lieutenant.

  Wander pursued De. Fragile pursued Wander. Split apart by the living geography of The Wild, the two were reunited by the intervention of an ancient being. Wander revealed to Fragile that she had come to The Wild in search of De and the Larun captain who had enslaved her. Fragile offered to help her kill him, and Wander accepted.

  Their next encounter was with the supernatural figure Uff, an individual sharing the same name as an antique deity, whose territory Wander and Fragile ran across in their pursuit. Wander freed a group of traders he had subjugated, and all travelled toward the Couth of the Pale Aldir, discovering it overrun by Goalish warriors. There, she met the warrior Wildfire, and Wheel, an insurgent Larun holy man. In gratitude for Wander's slaying of a hostile beast, Wildfire warned her of a large, impending Goalish response to the Larun occupation.

  The last Goalish village they would encounter was that of Pathway, a town on the eve of a costly festival in which a powerful beast, the Trickmaker, was consulted for divination. Wander set out to slay the beast and retrieve those lost to it; in so doing, she received knowledge of De's location, at the ruins of a Goalish village in the heart of the Wild.

  De and Wander arrived at the village and fought. De, by way of cunning, emerged at first victorious, and dealt Fragile a mortal blow. The Bell triumphed over De's spirit and awarded Wander new power, with which she beat him. Fragile survived his injury with both Wander's care and the Trickmaker's magic. Then she burned De to death in a fire.

  Her vengeance halfway fulfilled, Fragile and Wander now approach the Ash Road, which is the main artery of Larunkat's territories in the North. From there they move towards Herdetopp, an important city, in search of Wander's beast: Teller, the lord of Goal, who is possessed of power, a seat, and great authority. But other forces rise up in their path that may yet obstruct her.

  The Larun hunter, Joyborn, slumbers, but he will recover. When he does, he will find his damning appetites set loose on the oppressed millions which are now his charge. In the Wild, a Trickmaker grows, discovering ways of being its species has never known before. And all around Goal, the land's desolate peoples arm themselves and strike up apocalyptic rituals, preparing for a first and last Attack against the seeing nations which chain, chastise, and execute them, which stab apart the soil, and whose laws forbid the ancient ways. Their rulers are gone, and they do not fear any after-life.

  It is between these powers, and those of the Family which still binds her, that Wander now finds herself placed, at the start of spring and the second quarter.