Ga'Hoole is victorious, but far from the great tree, in the bitter ashes of defeat under a full moon, Nyroc is born. And he will be bred to monstrous evil.

Kludd is dead. Nyra, his mate, is determined that her hatchling, Nyroc, will fulfill his father's destiny: the vicious oppression of all the owl kingdoms. But Nyroc is a poor student of evil. A light grows in his heart, fed by scraps of forbidden legend and strange news of a place where goodness and nobility reign. He must summon all his courage to defy his destiny — and the embodiment of evil that is his mother.