The King of Serendonia suffers from an injury that won't heal. Legend says three magical objects might cure him, but they're difficult to obtain. Nonetheless, the king's three children vow to find and retrieve them. The king's oldest daughter has returned with the silver platter, and now it's time for her brother, Prince John, to leave on his own quest for the second object, the bronze lance. The journey promises to hold tests of his courage, honor, loyalty, strength and endurance. The night before he leaves, a strange woman appears to him in the darkness. Her frightening, ferocious beauty terrifies him. When she tells John she is his destiny and he'll be coming to her, it makes the prospect of the quest all the more terrifying. Her touch sears him like a brand, bringing both pain and ecstasy. John sets out on a journey that will take him up the side of a mountain, through a series of sexual adventures, into dangerous confrontations with creatures that aren't what they seem, beyond terror and courage to an unexpected destiny with his dark lady.