The year is 1819 in the Holy Tiberian Empire. Every new moon, demons attack. No one ever knows where or how hard they'll strike. The only force standing between them and utter destruction are the Imperial Mages and the lesser demons they've bound to their wills.

Sonya Stolar's younger sister has always been the talented one, the mage destined to enter the Imperial Academy and bring their damaged family peace and prosperity, but on the eve of her acceptance, Sonya's younger sister reveals a secret relationship. A secret pregnancy. To save her family's future, Sonya is forced to take both her sister's name and her place in the academy.

Sonya has always struggled with magic though, and her inability to keep pace with her classmates invites suspicion and ridicule from her peers. Faced with the threat of expulsion, Sonya turns towards darker paths of magic. Towards a forbidden, demon-binding spell of her own. However, when the demon lord she mistakenly binds turns out to be far more powerful than the lesser one she'd intended, will Sonya's choices ultimately save her family? Or destroy the world as she knows it?