Lady Firebird Angelo Caldwell has been sentenced to death "in absentia" for treason, sedition, and heresy. The last thing she expects is a summons to return home and be confirmed as an heiress of her royal house.

But merciless foes are destroying entire cities of the Federate worlds. These renegades are trying to wipe out the messianic Caldwell bloodline, and they have almost eradicated the royal Angelos. To help trap an assassin, Firebird agrees to wear the heiress's tiara for one day of perilous pageantry.

Still, Firebird's deadliest enemy--the one that can destroy or bereave her--isn't that renegade assassin. Neither is it the despotic regent who hopes to seize the Angelos' throne, nor even the threat of dying in a desperate military strike at the renegades' world. Unless she can bring her own pride to heel, everything she cherishes will be lost.