Adara is the protagonist, with the heat, her father, and the war as the antagonists. Adara must overcome her cold heart and experience death and life to understand warmth, but she was born in a snow storm, which killed her mother. Then, in the midst of a cold childhood, Adara meets the ice dragon. It is even colder than her, breathing ice instead of fire, and freezing rivers that it settles next to. But just as her friendship with the ice dragon blossoms, a war is upon her father's farm.