On the day of her coming-of-age ceremony, Alia, the thirteenth princess of the Sun Kingdom, presses her hands upon the Sun Sacred Stone — and it shatters with crimson blood-veins, branding her a calamity. Her father the king strips her crown before the court and orders her exiled.
On the road to banishment, a sword pierces her heart, and she plummets into magma. At the edge of death, she seals a death contract with the phantom of an ancient phoenix — awakening the power of the White-Gold Phoenix with her very soul as kindling. The knight-commander Kaine witnesses the miracle and turns his allegiance to her.
Alia sneaks back into the capital to uncover the truth of her origins, only to be branded a regicide by her own father and hunted across the entire city. At the end of her flight, Leon, the exiled prince of the Dark Empire, emerges from the shadows.
Her coronation — the countdown began the very moment she was kicked into the magma.
