The Tearling, founded as a utopia, has collapsed and reverted to feudalism. Rumors of a prophecy begin to spread: a great hope, a True Queen who will ascend and save the kingdom. But rumors will not help Lazarus, a boy on the verge of manhood, trapped in the clandestine underworld known as the Creche. Enlisted from his earliest days to kill without mercy, he has never seen sun or sky, not until a quest for vengeance propels him aboveground. There he finds a calling amid a royal court rife with intrigue and danger, where he meets Niya, Princess Elyssa's handmaid, who is not what she appears to be and whose true identity will spell death if revealed. Princess Elyssa finds herself torn between duty to the throne and her growing loyalty to the Blue Horizon, a group of fierce idealists who promise radical change. Elyssa must choose quickly, for threats beset her on all sides, and the powers wielded by an uncanny seer and her shadowy master are preparing to decide the Princess's fate for her.