This action-filled novel takes place on a vivid and unusual planet. It deals with timeless issues of women's rights and power gluttony that develop after a band of itinerant travelers crash-landed on the planet's massive storm-battered plateau. While searching for shelter, their numbers split, and half vanished into the trees beyond the sheer escarpment. Those remaining struggled for survival in the depths of a rock-shrouded realm they called the Always Dark. The once-technological culture was reduced to feudal levels, both scientifically and socially.

More than a century later, mind games, social debacles and political intrigue drive protagonist Dwinn Somuron to escape enslavement and prove that her family legend about "the stone" is true. Dwinn's inherent memories keep giving her bits and pieces of her ancestors' lives, and validate for her the legend that many of the vanished explorers really survived in the treed land beyond the rock-shrouded Always Dark. Reaching Beyond is Dwinn's obsessive goal.

Her plans are stymied when she meets Lusaar Gursenni, the only son of the head official of the land. His enemies want to dispose of him and his parent ruler. Lusaar resists and is certain Dwinn can help his mother retain the dynast title. Although their compulsions are different, Lusaar and Dwinn make concessions. Together they withstand armies and harsh environmental conditions while trying to reach their respective goals.