Cristiana seeks a marriage of convenience and to be safe and settled in life. She agrees to accompany her father to the Holy Land so he'll approve the marriage. A sudden attack by highwaymen outside Jerusalem turns her world upside down. A gallant knight saves her, but inadvertently does her great harm. Labeling him her enemy, she forbids herself from civility toward him or even thanks for his service. Cristiana wants to feel safe, so why is she inexorably toward the man she's forbidden herself? Terrowin accompanies his father and the Baron to Jerusalem to save all their souls. They find the Holy Lands more tumultuous than the world believes. After rescuing the lovely Cristiana and knowing she hates him, Terrowin can't stop thinking of her, despite having promised himself to a girl back home in Gascony. Terrowin yearns to put things right, but such things are eternally complicated in the Holy Land. Cristiana and Terrowin must find a way to transcend the violence of a centuries-old religious war still raging in the Outremer, or become victims of its ravages. What draws them together may tear them apart. Then again, what tears them apart may draw them irrevocably together.