The book begins with an ancient vampire of Nordic descent awaking after being frozen in a block of ice for hundreds of years. The vampire, Thorne, meets Marius de Romanus and inquires about Marius' past. Marius then provides his life story. As a young Roman patrician, Marius was abducted by druids who were trying to find a replacement for their "god of the grove" - a vampire, kept locked inside a chamber underneath a tree, who took on the role of a god in a druidic religion. Marius does not want to receive the powers of the dying god, but is given them nonetheless...