The setting for the first three chapters is the city of Dalia in Southern Kenettra of the Sealands. The date is Juno (June) 13, 1361. Brief headers quoting various Kenettran texts introduce each chapter.

Sixteen-year-old Adelina Amouteru is imprisoned for murder and awaiting execution the next morning. In a flashback to a night weeks before, she overheard her father arranging to sell her as a mistress to a nobleman. Her father thought Adelina had no prospects for a husband because she was a “malfetto”—a recovered but marked victim of the blood fever that infected and killed many in Kennetra when Adelina was four. Her marking is her strange silver hair. Additionally, a doctor removed her left eye after the illness caused a terrible eye infection. Further, because some malfettos have special powers—the Young Elites—people tend to fear all malfettos.

Rejecting a fate as some man’s mistress, Adelina packed to flee. Her sister Violetta caught her leaving. Violetta had the blood fever too but is not marked; their father coddled Violetta as a flawless daughter. Violetta promised to keep her departure a secret. Adelina considered asking Violetta to come with her but knew Violetta would not.

Adelina did not get far on horseback; her father caught her and tried to drag her home. Adelina’s temper flared; this produced two strange phantoms. Terrified, her father fell; his horse, spooked, trampled him to death. The next morning, Inquisitors—Kennetra’s peacekeepers—found her. They brought Violetta, whose reaction identified her sister. They arrested Adelina.

Now, waiting for execution, she dreams of her father, who laughs at her inability to escape. She is glad he is dead.

Enzo (the Reaper, a Young Elite) receives a handwritten note from a dove in the night: “I’ve found her. Come to Dahlia at once. Your Faithful Messenger” (23). Enzo leaves Estenzia for Dalia.

An Inquisitor asks Adelina if she is a Young Elite. Adelina thinks the idea is preposterous. En route to the stake for burning, a large crowd throws stones and yells that she is a monster. The Lead Inquisitor of Kenettra, Teren Santoro, oversees the event. He makes a speech about finding and executing all the Young Elites. Then he lights the wood at Adelina’s feet. As her terror swells, the sky goes black, and the illusion of millions of locusts attacks the crowd. The crowd and the Inquisitors panic.

Suddenly, a Young Elite called the Reaper dressed in blue hooded robes and a silver mask arrives. He kills an Inquisitor with a dagger and then uses his hand to construct a wall of flame to keep the others at bay. He melts Adelina’s shackles with this hand and takes her away.

The setting is now the City of Estenzia in Northern Kenettra.

Adelina dreams of when she and Violetta found an injured butterfly; Violetta wanted to save it, but Adelina knew it would die. Angry that Violetta was hurt by this, she smacked the butterfly to the grass. Their father approached and forced Adelina to kill the insect. Her father insisted that Adelina showed him if she had any “value”—any powers. She could not; he broke her finger.

Adelina wakes in a room she does not recognize. The Reaper arrives. Adelina thinks his blood-colored hair (his malfetto mark) and features are beautiful. He comments that she is part Tamouran. (Tamoura is a nation in the Sunlands.) Adelina says Kenettra has many Tamouran immigrants; when he asks for her Tamouran baby name, she admits her mother called her “little wolf.” He announces they are in Estenzia, the port capital. He shows her how he can create fire from his fingers.

The Reaper comments on her illusions. When he explains his desire to seize the throne, Adelina recognizes him—Enzo Valenciano, the prince. He lost his path to the throne because of the fever; his father, the king, died, and his sister banished him and married a duke who became king. He looks at her missing eye and then shows her that his hand is a mass of scar tissue from creating fire. She realizes he wants to use Elite power—including hers—to reclaim the throne. He offers her the protection of his group of Young Elites, the Dagger Society, and the chance to learn to control her power.

Teren, the Lead Inquisitor, waits at the palace to surprise Queen Giulietta. They are lovers. He lets on that he allowed the Reaper to take Adelina from her execution stand so that he could follow them to catch all the Elites working together with the Reaper. Giulietta mentions the king, and Teren is angry that a foolish duke is king just because Giulietta was forced to marry him.

After a week, Enzo instructs Adelina to meet Raffaele. Raffaele is a young man who works as a consort (sex worker) in the brothel where Enzo hides Adelina. Raffaele sensed Adelina’s energy when she tried to run away from home and then let Enzo know where to find her. He is the Messenger; he recruits new Young Elites from malfettos for the Dagger Society. The lovely city impresses Adelina, and she spies a balira—a ray-like flying creature with a rider—in the distance. Raffaele explains how malfettos are persecuted in Estenzia, and how the city itself still suffers from economic unrest post-epidemic.

Down dark stairs in a hidden chamber, Raffaele begins tests to see if Adelina’s energies are worthy of joining the Dagger Society. He encircles her with 12 gemstones. Several begin to glow. He tells her to concentrate on each one. The diamond compels a memory: She is eight and Violetta is six. Adelina outdistances her sister running in the woods intentionally, jealous of their father’s attention on Violetta. Raffaele says the diamond represents Adelina’s quest for power and ambition. Next, he holds the veritium near her. Another memory: she grips a rose stem and bleeds from the thorns after Violetta comments on its beauty. Adelina’s takeaway is that “pain enhances beauty” (74). Raffaele tells her she aligns with veritium’s knowledge of self.

The roseite causes a different memory: At 15, she was compelled to flirt with and host potential suitors while knowing none would take her as a wife. Though she laughed with a suitor, she envisioned poisoning him. Raffaele says the glowing roseite means she has intense passion. Last, Adelina holds amber and nightstone, which stand for Fear and Fury; Adelina flashes through many dark, infuriating memories of her father and those jeering at her at the execution. Raffaele says something in her heart is bitter.

Raffaele says he will report these results to Enzo; he labels Adelina an apprentice. Adelina realizes that if she cannot learn to control her abilities, she will become a deficit to the Dagger Society, and Enzo will kill her.

Enzo arrives an hour after one of Raffaele’s clients roughly abused him and left. Enzo is excited to share with Raffaele that the Tournament of Storms will be a good chance to “strike down” both the king and queen. Raffaele tells Enzo about Adelina’s test with the gemstones. Her results with Fear and Fury intrigue Enzo, but Raffaele thinks that Adelina shows a rare alignment with Diamond’s ambition tendency—an energy Enzo has. Raffaele recommends killing Adelina outright because of her dark, dangerous bitterness, but Enzo believes she will be useful. Raffaele feels this depends on whether she can be controlled. Enzo notices Raffaele’s wounds and asks the client’s name. The next morning, the abuser is found burned to death, nailed to his door.