The book tells the story of Dashti, a simple mucker girl who has found herself in a completely different situation than when she first started. She left her small home and went to the city singing healing songs in order to live, where she was trained to be a servant or maid in the place. In order to do this, particularly if you were the Princess Saren's maid because she refused to read or write. So Dashti learns these skills and then go to the palace. There, everything happens quickly. She meets a somber Lady Saren and witnesses the rage of the king on his daughter. They are then taken a tower where they will spend the next seven years until Lady Saren changes her mind about marrying Lord Khasar, a terribly mean man from the next kingdom over. However, she has also betrothed herself to Khan Tegus on the other side of her kingdom. At first Dashti tries to make the best of the situation. She writes in the journal, chronically the days as they go by all the while, Lady Saren remains quiet and to herself. They have plenty of food and a place to sleep, but soon this gets old. She gets visits from Khan Tegus. Lady Saren orders Dashti to pretend to be her. Dashti does and continues to fall in love with him, especially after giving her a cat. After he leaves, the girls get another visit from the terrible Lord Khasar who tries to torture them out of the tower. Soon all of the guards who were guarding the tower were attacked by dogs and no one else came for them. The days drag on and the food supply gets low as the rats increase. Finally one day, Dashti realizes that if the rats could get in, then there had to be a way for them to get out. She searches and finds it. She finally breaks the wall down, but Lady Saren has been so secluded that she is terrified of going out in the day. When they do finally leave, they have been in the tower almost 1000 days. They travel back to her father's city to find that it has been destroyed by Khasar. So they travel to Khan Tegus's city and find work in the palace as pot scrubbers. It's hard work and Saren (who only wants to be known as Sar) is slow. She has opened up about what happened a little to Dashti. She meet Lord Khasar years ago and saw him for what he really was. Khan Tegus finds out that a mucker who knows healing songs now works in his house and calls on Dashti to help him with an old injury in his leg. He also discovers that she can read and write and soon becomes a scribe in the house. While he out to war, Dashti learns that he has betrothed himself to another in order to protect his kingdom and that Sar actually can do pretty good work. Tegus is wounded terribly in battle and Dashti does what she can to help. Once he is healed, she finds that Khasar is surrounding the city and wants Saren. Dashti steps up and claims to be Saren and tries to stop the war from happening. She sneaks into Khasar's camp and sings the wolf song. Khasar transforms into a wolf and attacks his men. They shoot him until he dies. It's revealed that Khasar sold his soul so that he may transform into a wolf. Saren saw this several years ago and was terrified of him. Tegus arrives and calls off his wedding in order to marry Dashti, who he still believes is Saren. Dashti leaves the city and is caught by Tegus former fiancee. She wants to kill Dashti or cut off her feet. Tegus arrives and stops and Dashti is put in prison until her judgement. At the trial the next day, Saren stands up for Dashti. It is decided that she will go free and Saren will marry Tegus. She says that she will give him to her sister, Dashti to marry instead. They do and seem to live happily ever after.
The book, while the concept is great, I felt as though it was lagging a little. There were days and days where absolutely nothing happened at all. Those writings were not necessarily bad, but at times, it seemed extremely repetitive. I know that it also occurred over the course of several years, but it seemed as though the story really dragged on, particularly after the main characters were employed at Tegus' palace. While the story does have a great touch of fantasy, the reader must be willing to sit through a rather long account. I like the twist on the older fairy tales, but it seemed to lack something. I'm not for sure if it's the emotion that is not conveyed in the writing or the story itself.
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