Dayn Ro'Halan is a farmer's son sworn to a life of plowing on his homeworld, Shard. After finding a lost artifact called a Seed, he's thrust into an ancient conflict between voidwalkers of the hated world Thar'Kur, and Defenders from a floating fortress called the Ring. Dayn must become a Seedbearer and learn to use the Seed's power to shape worlds before the entire World Belt is lost.

Disaster strikes when the young Seedbearer destined to save the World Belt is captured by voidwalkers. Certain that all is lost if Dayn Ro'Halan is killed, the Ringmen Lurec and Nassir set out to rescue him. If he's to escape and defeat the voidwalkers for good, Dayn must accept the Belt's most terrible secret—before the voidwalker leader Raaluwos succeeds in twisting Dayn's own power against him.

After Dayn Ro'Halan's victory on the world of Panen, the young Seedbearer is torn between two paths: spearhead the Ring's struggle against the forces of Thar'Kur, or fulfill his ultimate task of forging a new world for the peoples of the Belt. Doubt over Dayn's unpredictable power festers upon the Ring. The captured Thar'Kuri Crusos vows that the Seed will bring death and ruin to all Dayn touches, and the Ringmen Nassir and Lurec secretly fear the voidwalker's warnings will prove true. Wracked by guilt over the people left behind on Nemoc, weary of the Lord Ascendant's endless plotting and fearful of the darkness spreading through the Seed, Dayn abandons the Ring to unite the worlds in his own way and prove his powers are whole. New friends and old twist Dayn's course as he confronts an inevitable question: can he use the Seed's power to heal the Breach?