Gwyn’s focus in life is to fit in with the popular girls in her idyllic seaside town. But that changes when a hooded stranger alerts her to her parents’ danger. Finding them murdered in their own home, she and her brother, Martin, scramble to escape the killer, the notorious Black Wizard.

Sick of his father's scrutiny and criticism, the prince of Vickland, Heron Oakheart, escapes into the mysterious Zenia Wood, where he meets an eccentric old man. Bromlin tells the prince a dark secret about his father, King Donavan Oakheart, that forces him to question everything he knows.

 
As Gwyn and Heron unravel the dark plots surrounding them, the stakes and danger rise. Gwyn discovers what it means to be a true friend, and that she is bravest when her loved ones are in danger. Heron realizes his strengths and limitations for the first time. He begins to understand that as a leader, arrogance belies weakness and in humility there is real strength. This understanding positions him as the antidote to his father, but can he heal his country while it is still under his father's shadow?