On his return trip from the borderlands, Lord Robin Blake sees bandits attacking a young woman in the snow. He comes to her aid and fights off the ruffians, but not before he is wounded. To make matters worse, he is thrown from his horse and breaks through the ice. From underwater, he sees the silhouette of an angel in a flurry of snow. It is the woman he's helped, now coming to assist him. She tells him her name is Sage and takes him to a nearby monastery where she works as a healer. Her expertise at healing doesn't go unnoticed, but Robin also sees something else.

Princess Maakah of Geshur is duty-bound to create a political alliance for her father through marriage. The cancellation by King Saul of her betrothal to his fourth-born son compels Maakah's father to arrange an unexpected marriage to the rebel David ben Jesse, a shepherd-warrior anointed years earlier as Israel's future king. Taken aback by stories of David's fierceness and lowly birth, Maakah considers the match a degrading fate but obeys her father's wishes out of duty as her nation's only heir.