Following her attempted execution as a traitor, Genia Denkshiff is rescued and brought from her native Cumberland to Tauris by the Goddess Huntress. There, she is taken under the wing of President Zhirelda and installed as priestess at the Temple of Environmental Execution. After ten years of exile, strangers from her country are brought to her for execution. When Genia realizes one of the “criminals” is her brother, her homesickness is reawakened. On their journey back, she must justify her actions to her brother’s friend Philip, forced to mature beyond naïve ideology without abandoning the hope for change.