A week after Prince Cardan's birth, Lady Asha presents him to High King Eldred later than custom demands. The Royal Astrologer Baphen reads the prince's star chart before a small court gathering and delivers a grim prophecy: Cardan will be Eldred's last child, the destruction of the crown, and the ruination of the throne.

Lady Asha suspects political manipulation, but Baphen adds that only from Cardan's spilled blood can a great ruler rise, and only after the foretold ruin occurs. Eldred reacts by ordering Asha to take the child away and rear him herself, then gives Asha emeralds as a formal reward. Baphen senses that Eldred's rejection may help bring the prophecy about.

Eldred avoids both Lady Asha and Cardan thereafter. Asha enjoys court attention but resents the burden of motherhood, leaving Cardan first with a cat as wet nurse and then largely unattended. Cardan grows up in the palace neglected, undisciplined, and encouraged by Asha to take whatever he wants because he is a prince.

As a child, Cardan longs for Eldred's attention and is vulnerable to Prince Dain's manipulation. Dain challenges him to shoot a walnut off an enchanted mortal's head and offers to exchange arrows. Cardan nearly fires, tempted by the idea that even terrible behavior might make his father notice him, but the mortal's helpless fear makes Cardan back down.

Dain then shoots the mortal through the throat using Cardan's arrow and frames Cardan for the killing. Cardan protests, but Dain controls the story and Eldred refuses to hear Cardan's side. Val Moren, who loved the murdered mortal, demands execution, but Eldred instead punishes Cardan by imprisoning Lady Asha in the Tower of Forgetting and placing Cardan in the care of cruel Balekin, cementing Cardan's infamous reputation.