Shanna has spent her whole life waiting—waiting to be old enough, waiting for the day she must pick a consort, waiting for a chance to finally overcome her despicable stepfather… and waiting for someone to finally banish the loneliness that comes with being a queen-in-waiting one step away from being murdered. On the eve of the two-week event during which she must pick a consort from a bevy of suitors, two strangers arrive claiming to have been invited—though she knows full well they did not receive any such invitation. But the handsome, mischievous Prince Kallaar is too intriguing to resist, and his quiet bodyguard too compelling to ignore… But she’s learned the hard way never to let anyone get too close, and on the verge of gaining true independence her stepfather will stop at nothing to see she never gets it.

All Penli wants to be is left alone. After nearly a decade of blood, violent soldiering, and a lifetime of enduring his cold, ambitious family, it's almost a relief to be practically alone in the middle of a desert kingdom with no way to return home because of the warrant out for his arrest. The very last thing he needs is to be consumed by a fit of honor and nobility—but he would much rather die than ever see the two sweet, intriguing men who cross his path forced apart, one to be thrown to the streets, the other to marry a malicious bully Penli has despised for years. Though he means only to free them, having no desire to marry after barely escaping one unwanted marriage, with each passing day Penli fears the only thing more difficult than throwing his life away will be resisting the urge to build a new one with two men he barely knows.

It is the duty of the lifesworn to devote their lives to protecting, serving, and guiding those to whom they're sworn. The best of them serve one master for their entire lives. Though Omar has only ever wanted to be listed amongst those greats, he instead loses his first master to illness, his second to age, and is rejected by subsequent potentials. When a foreign woman, Lady Astira, arrives unexpectedly in Morentia in the dead of night, she brings dire news: her betrothed, Lord Symaia, has been kidnapped. Without him and the soldiers who follow him, Princess Shanna will be missing a significant part of her army in the coming war against her stepfather. Symaia is also an old friend of Omar's, and so he is assigned the task of finding, rescuing, and protecting Symaia. If Omar fails in his mission, lives and kingdoms will be lost. If he succeeds, he must watch as the man he's always loved marries the woman he's quickly falling in love with.