Artemesia finally escapes the prim and proper world of finishing schools and sets out to win her mother's title as pirate queen of the seas until she meets her match against Goldie Girl, the treacherous captain of the pirate ship "Enemy."

While traveling through early seventh-century Britain trying to stop an impending war, Essa, who bears the blood of native British tribes and of the invading Anglish, discovers that his mother is alive and he, himself, is a prince of the northern kingdom, but he has loyalties and loved ones in the south to whom he is compelled to return.