When King Edward gives his niece Elfwyn two choices--marry one of his allies or become a nun--Wyn is at a loss to decide. Her strong, warrior mother has just died, so it's impossible to know what she would have wanted.
Wyn takes the first risk of her life and flees. Disguising herself as a boy, she adopts a new identity as a traveling storyteller called Widsith (far traveler) and reinvents herself, drawing upon the books she has loved all her life. Soon she finds her fate inextricably tied with the dark-eyed King Wilfrid, who knows her only as Widsith, and wants her help in a plot against her own uncle.