Axl wakes before dawn and broods over the mysterious mist that has stolen the memories of everyone in his village.

Beatrice and Axl agree to finally set out on their long-delayed journey to find their son's village.

Axl and Beatrice leave their hilltop warren on foot, carrying walking sticks and bundles as they begin the journey.

Sheltering at a crumbling Roman villa, Axl and Beatrice meet a boatman who says couples must share cherished memories to reach his island.

Axl and Beatrice arrive at a heavily guarded Saxon village and witness a silent crowd gathered around a large bonfire.

Wistan returns to the Saxon village carrying a monster's severed shoulder and bringing the rescued boy Edwin with him.

Wistan, Edwin, Axl, and Beatrice set off together along the mountain road toward the monastery of the monk Jonus.

The traveling group meets the aging knight Sir Gawain resting alone beneath a great spreading oak tree in a forest clearing.

At the monastery, Wistan accuses the monks of protecting the dragon Querig, and Father Jonus confirms the accusation is true.

Soldiers seize Wistan inside the monastery while Father Brian secretly guides Axl, Beatrice, and Edwin to safety through a trapdoor.

Sir Gawain leads Axl, Beatrice, and Edwin through underground caverns and kills a monstrous beast that blocks their path to freedom.

Axl and Beatrice accept a poisoned goat from three orphaned children who beg them to leave it at the dragon's feeding cairn.

All travelers converge at the cairn and Sir Gawain finally admits that he has been the dragon Querig's protector all along.

Wistan kills Sir Gawain in a duel and then beheads the sleeping dragon Querig inside her stone pit.

Beatrice crosses alone to the boatman's island while Axl wades back to shore, unable to follow his wife.

Axl and Beatrice leave their hilltop village and set out on a journey to find their son, encountering a boatman at a ruined villa who reveals that couples must share cherished memories to be united on his island. At a Saxon village they join forces with the warrior Wistan and the orphaned boy Edwin, then travel together to a mountain monastery where they discover that a dragon named Querig is the source of the mist erasing everyone's memories. An aging knight named Sir Gawain joins their path, and after soldiers seize Wistan at the monastery, Gawain helps the others escape through underground caverns. The group reconvenes at a hilltop cairn where the full truth emerges: Gawain confesses he has been protecting the dragon, whose breath suppressed memories of wartime atrocities and kept an uneasy peace between Saxons and Britons. Wistan defeats Gawain in a duel and kills the dragon, shattering the mist and warning that violent memories will now return. At the journey's end, Beatrice crosses alone to the boatman's island while Axl wades back to shore, separated from his wife by the threshold between life and death.

The core journey from a fog-shrouded village to the dragon's death and a final parting.

Axl recalls Beatrice secretly carrying food to a mysterious cloaked woman whom the other villagers refused to help.

Beatrice warns Axl to walk carefully around the buried giant, which looks like an ordinary hill, as they cross the Great Plain.

The tormented old woman at the Roman villa finally releases her rabbit and silently departs the crumbling ruins.

Beatrice visits the Saxon medicine woman about her pain and learns of a wise monk named Jonus living up the mountain road.

Saxon villagers threaten to kill Edwin because his unexplained chest wound is seen as a dark omen of future evil.

Ivor, a Briton living among Saxons, drives away the hostile crowd threatening Axl and Beatrice in the village square.

Wistan proposes to Axl and Beatrice that they take Edwin with them while he escorts the group safely to monk Jonus.

The group crosses a guarded bridge by disguising Wistan as a deaf-mute and Edwin as his young brother.

Wistan kills the gray-haired soldier after the soldier forces Edwin to bare his chest wound and exposes the group's disguise.

Father Jonus examines Edwin's wound and provides an ointment, then assures Beatrice that her own pain is not serious.

Edwin escapes the underground cavern and makes his way back to the monastery, where he finds Wistan wounded but alive.

River sprites surround Beatrice's wicker basket; Axl leaps into the water and drives them away to protect his wife.

Wistan forces a reluctant Edwin to promise that he will carry hatred of Britons in his heart if Wistan falls.

Wistan warns Axl and Beatrice that killing Querig will release suppressed memories of atrocity and unleash Saxon vengeance upon the Britons.

The boatman privately questions Axl and draws out the painful story of how Axl refused to let Beatrice visit their dead son's grave.

Before the journey properly begins, Beatrice's secret meeting with a cloaked woman plants the seeds of the quest, and early dangers on the road reveal just how perilous the landscape has become. At the Saxon village Axl and Beatrice learn of the monk Jonus, witness Edwin's life threatened by his own community, and are shielded from a hostile mob by a Briton named Ivor before Wistan proposes they all travel together. The road to the monastery brings its own trials, including a tense bridge crossing in disguise and the killing of a soldier who threatens to expose the group. At the monastery Father Jonus tends to Edwin's wound while confirming the monks' complicity with the dragon, and after escaping through an underground passage Edwin finds his way back to the wounded Wistan hiding in a hut. The journey's middle stretch is marked by a terrifying encounter with river sprites that nearly claims Beatrice, and by Wistan's grim demand that Edwin promise to hate Britons. The novel closes with the boatman questioning Axl alone, drawing out the painful secret that Axl once refused to let Beatrice mourn at their dead son's grave.

The encounters, alliances, and dangers that shape the road from village to journey's end.

The village community confiscates Beatrice's candle and forbids her from having one, leaving her deeply shaken.

Beatrice reveals to Axl that the mysterious cloaked woman warned her she must find their son before losing all her memory.

After meeting the boatman, Beatrice confesses to Axl that she fears their love will fade and die without shared memories.

Ivor warns Axl and Beatrice that the she-dragon Querig is to blame for the mist and the evils plaguing the village.

Wistan gives Axl a prolonged knowing look, and Sir Gawain is visibly startled when he first sees Axl's face.

Sir Gawain reveals that Edwin's chest wound is a dragon bite that will compel the boy to seek the she-dragon.

Gawain confesses to the escaping group that he is the one who revealed Wistan's true identity to the Abbott.

In his reverie, Gawain recalls Arthur ordering the slaughter of Saxon women and children, and a knight called Axelum who openly opposed it.

Wistan recounts to Axl how Lord Brennus humiliated him for being Saxon and eventually drove him to abandon the Britons entirely.

Edwin admits to Wistan that he has been leading him toward his captive mother rather than toward the dragon Querig.

During the night at the children's cottage, Beatrice recovers a painful memory of Axl once leaving her for a younger woman.

Gawain tells Axl that Axl was once a knight of King Arthur who cursed the king to his face over the Saxon slaughter.

Gawain reveals that Merlin cast a spell on Querig under Arthur's orders so her breath would make everyone forget past massacres.

Freed by Axl and Beatrice, Edwin feels Querig die but finds he cannot bring himself to hate the elderly couple as Wistan demanded.

Beatrice tells Axl she trusts the boatman and that separation is for the best; the couple share a final embrace before parting.

The novel's deepest revelations unfold gradually, beginning with small cruelties in the village — the confiscation of Beatrice's candle, and her private fear that lost memories will dissolve the love she and Axl share. As the journey progresses, hints of Axl's buried past accumulate through Wistan's knowing glances and Gawain's startled recognition, suggesting Axl was once far more than a simple old man. The monastery brings dark confessions: Gawain admits he exposed Wistan to the Abbott, and the truth about Edwin's dragon bite reveals the supernatural pull that Querig exerts over the boy. Gawain's reverie exposes the moral rot at the heart of Arthur's legacy — a massacre of Saxon innocents — while Wistan's story of humiliation at Lord Brennus's hands explains his burning need to see the dragon destroyed. The novel's final revelations reframe everything: Merlin's spell, Axl's forgotten identity as a knight who once cursed Arthur, and Beatrice's quiet acceptance of her own fate. The story closes not with battle but with an agonizing act of love, as Axl chooses to release his wife and let her cross the water alone.

The hidden truths, buried memories, and emotional shifts that redefine the story's meaning.