When a group of assassins ambushes her best friend, her lover, Rielle, the brave girl risks everything to get him out of trouble. Now Riel will have to go through seven magical tests. If she survives, she will become the Sun Queen, and if she fails, she will be declared the Blood Queen and executed. Nearly a thousand years after these events, in a world where all the kingdoms except Astavar have fallen to the Immortal Empire, magic has disappeared and the temples of the saints have been destroyed, the bounty hunter Eliana is forced to kill on the orders of the imperial authorities. Eliana believes she is untouchable—until her mother disappears. To find her, Eliana teams up with rebels and soon discovers that the evil lurking at the heart of the Empire is worse than she could have imagined.