The crusade against the Moors has ended, and to reclaim his lost inheritance, the knight Alvaro de Castro agrees to serve the Inquisition by investigating a plot against Queen Isabella. His sole ally is the daughter of a rabbi, the brilliant but impulsive Rachel Harel. The politically linked trail of clues leads Alvaro and Rachel to a conspiracy aimed at usurping the throne of Castile. Although they are from opposite ends of society, Alvaro and Rachel succumb to an attraction that flares into love. However, in an era of intolerance, the punishment for such a romance is to be burned at the stake. Hounding their every step is Friar Severa and his enforcer, Baltasar Espino-the former motivated by obsession, the other by brutality. In a nation scarred by warfare and prejudice, Alvaro and Rachel must uncover an astonishing truth about the monarchy before it can be used to destroy all of Spain.
