The Dark King of the Crystal Empire has been defeated, banished from the mortal realm for all eternity. His demons have gone with him. But his war leaves Equestria burning, and rising from the embers there is opportunity.

High Lord Gerrion plans in his high city of blackened stone, while the desert-dwellers sit behind their high walls and scorching winds and do nothing. The deer? Never. They will sit in their forests of shadowing trees and wait. The Equestrian military is a shadow of its former self, their legions shying away to the knight. Celestia and Luna have a war on their hooves, and no way to fight it. They need allies… and the west has yet to bend the knee.

A dance and a song is ready to be played against a backdrop of swords and spears, quills and ravens, manipulation and deceit, murder and death… and the fate of Equestria, their allies, and their enemies hangs, vulnerable, before them. Victory is ripe for the taking, and it will be a battle against the wisest, the strongest, the most cunning, the most loyal… and the coldest. For when kings clash, the whole land trembles.