Elves can cast magic. Humans can not. Despite lacking arcane abilities, the humans, better known as Steel-Born, have been killing Elven ages at an alarmingly rapid rate. The human's newfound ferocity seems to be connected to a strange, glowing, and magical sickness that is killing plants, animals, and humans alike within the Steel-Born kingdom. The Steel-Born are convinced the Elves are to blame, while the elves are convinced the Steel-Born are to blame. After all, the Steel-Born destroy everything they touch. The youngest of three children, the backup heir to the backup heir, human prince Drustan is tasked with saving his people from the strange, magical, and ever-spreading sickness.

Meanwhile, in the Elven kingdom, mages are getting felled by enraged human knights at a concerning right. After all an elf's lifespan is longer than a human's. Elves are meant to outlive humans. However they won't outlive humans if they continue to get killed at such a high rate. Left with no choice but to draft his citizens into the war, only the lucky few, the bright and talented are given the illusion of choice.

Working class peasant turned magical prodigy Alanis Zinmora is given a harsh ultimatum by his king : fight on the frontlines and risk dying at the hands of a Steel-Born's sword, or work as an experimental war mage, developing unstable and deadly spells so the elves can put humans in their place once and for all. Alanis doesn't want to hurt people with his magic.

As the war between the Elves and the Steel-Born rages, so does the strange magical sickness. As the sickness spreads, it starts to kill Elves as well as Steel-Born. There's more to the sickness than meets the eye... Will the two kingdoms put aside their differences aside long enough to save their planet from extinction? Or will they fight until their very last, wheezing breath?