On the day the Holgarians attack her town, Asta is blessed by a warrior god and is empowered with the heightened senses and unnatural healing abilities these foreign invaders possess. Grief-stricken and paralyzed by terror, she's hauled onto the conquering general's ship and taken across the sea. One year later, Asta graduates from warrior academy with honors and is chosen as one of the king's personal Defenders. She will finally have the opportunity to kill the man who gave the general his orders, and avenge her family. She doesn't expect the king to be young or kind, or completely oblivious of what his men are doing overseas. He has been told peaceful negotiations are going well. But Asta knows better. Asta must find proof of the general's treachery and bring it before the king so that she can save unconquered provinces from meeting the same fate as her hometown. But the king's counselors suddenly start dying, and the king himself is hounded by foreign assassins. Revenge will have to wait if Asta's going to keep the king, the mainland's only hope, alive.