Content Warning: This section includes discussion of rape, illness, graphic violence, death, and animal death.

A young woman named Agnieszka lives in Dvernik, a town in a valley on the border of the deadly Wood. The lord of the valley is a wizard called the Dragon. For 100 years he has lived in an isolated tower above the valley. The villagers fear the Dragon but acknowledge his importance. The Wood constantly encroaches on the villages, corrupting crops, infecting people, or stealing people away. The Dragon’s magic is the only thing that protects them. In exchange, every 10 years, he takes a 17-year-old village girl as a servant. Each girl emerges from the Tower at the end of her service unharmed but restless and unable to stay in her village, instead leaving for Kralia, the capital city of the broader kingdom of Polnya.

The Dragon always takes the best girl. The villagers know that this year the Dragon will choose Kasia, Agnieszka’s closest friend, who is beautiful and brave. Kasia’s mother takes special care to prepare her. Agnieszka is gangly, plain, wild, and somehow always dirty. Her parents have never feared that the Dragon will choose her.