Every dawn brings horror to a different family in a land ruled by a murderous boy-king. But all is not what it seems in Khorasan, and it will take the wit and will of one girl to break the cycle and the spell.

The Caliph is a killer. Every night the eighteen-year-old ruler takes a new bride and every dawn he has her killed. When sixteen-year-old Shahrzad volunteers to marry Khalid, the young Caliph of Khorasan, she does so with the plan of exacting revenge on him for the murder of her best friend and too many other girls to count. Her decision spurs her meek-mannered father to embrace a dark form of magic, her docile sister to abandon all pretense of timidity, and her childhood sweetheart, Tariq, to the treasonous rallying of the Caliph's enemies in preparation for war. Shazi's wit and will see her through to the dawn no others have seen, but with a catch even she cannot outwit. She's falling in love with the very boy who killed her dearest friend.

But in betraying her family, turning her back on her childhood love, and chaining her heart to the ferocious king, Shahrzad may end up discovering a truth that frees them all.