The Dragon Masters have defeated the evil wizard Maldred, but not before the Kingdom of Bracken was devastated by Naga, the earthquake dragon; now Drake and his dragon, Worm, must appeal to the spring dragon, Fallyn, who is their only hope of restoring Bracken before its people starve--but Fallyn lives deep inside a secret fairy world, and Drake must pass a series of tricky tests before he can even make his appeal.

Despite their political differences Nyl, a young Ukrainian farmer, and Alice, a Canadian girl whose father has come to the Soviet Union, struggle to survive the famine-genocide known as the Holodomor, when the forced collectivization of the Ukrainian farms and hard winters led to mass starvation and death.