Prince Ronan is in serious trouble. Numb with grief and depression after losing his young wife and baby, he is returning from a border skirmish in which he unsuccessfully tried to get himself killed when his horse accidentally tramples the witch Brume's favorite white hen. Brume curses him, but Ronan doesn't think his life can possibly get any bleaker. Oh, how wrong he is! Upon reaching his home, he discovers that his unfeeling ogre of a father has arranged a marriage for him; moreover, the nuptials are to take place that very month. Standing at a window when his wedding day comes, the shattered prince glimpses a most wondrous creature, a firebird of unearthly beauty. Compelled by forces beyond understanding, Ronan follows the bird into the forest and a realm of twisted magic in which nothing is as it seems, and where a prince could lose himself for eternity.