Adina, wife of the ailing Emperor Dheran, gives birth during an eclipse, at exactly the point in time predicted in the Tindaya Code—the ancient, ambiguous and oft-mistranslated prophecy written on the ruins of the temple at the mountain of Tindaya—thus her child is proclaimed to be the saviour of the world: the Guardian. However, Adina gives birth to twins, one an exuberant, healthy boy named Jax, but the other an undersized and crippled boy who would come to be called Terrel. With the Seers who run Vadanis in uproar about the unpredicted arrival of twins, and disgusted with his condition, Terrel is sent to, and brought up in, Haven—an asylum for the insane, utterly unaware of his royal lineage.