When craftsmen arrive in the town of Podonye Samorsky allotment to recruit students, the life of thirteen-year-old Elga Galkava changes irrevocably. Unexpectedly for herself, she becomes a student of Unissa Maru, the master of leaves. Since that time, her fate consists of roads and towns, lessons on adding magic paintings and pain in the fingers. She wears a huge sak with leaves behind her back. At the same time, somewhere in the west, another master begins his campaign. Master of death. Their meeting, apparently, is inevitable.