Wales in the 12th century: Basilia, the illegitimate daughter of a maid and the powerful Richard de Clare, is taken to Ireland at the age of fifteen, where her father has established a significant realm. Alongside her stepmother, the flamboyant Irish princess Aoife, Basilia begins a new life. She learns to love the foreign, rugged land where the clans fiercely resist the rule of the de Clares. When her father marries her off to one of his cruel followers instead of to her secret love, the knight Raymond FitzGerald, it plunges not only Basilia into misfortune. The feud between Raymond and her father ignites bloody unrest throughout the land.