The second novel begins where the first ended: with Beauty's deliberate disobedience to ensure even harsher punshiment. Beauty and her companion, Prince Tristan, are auctioned to different masters, and each becomes a favorite. Tristan and his new master, Nicolas, allow love to enter their relationship, changing it in ways Tristan never anticipated. But changes in power relationships are ever present, and the village is sacked, with Tristan and Beauty taken away as spoils. On the way to a sultan's palace, Beauty is drawn to another slave, Laurent. They wait aboard ship, having been told that they will no longer be treated as thinking beings, but merely as parcels, the smell of adventure on the wind.