A female-identifying prince is hidden away from an evil dowager queen who is intent on killing every heir to the throne - and the young prince is the only heir left alive. Only after the queen vows to stop killing heirs does the protector of the prince reveal her. The prince is safely moved into the castle, where she suffers the Queen's loathing.

The prince realizes that the Queen plans to poison her before she can claim the crown on her 16th birthday. On a ride in the woods she comes across an old man who advises her to enter the Valley of the Wounded Deer. There, a wounded deer offers some words of wisdom, saying that the ways of men are the worst and the gentle ways of God are the best.

The prince returns to her 16th birthday feast and calmly eats the poisoned dish, inspired by the deer to accept her fate with grace. However, when she wakes up alive and well the next day she discovers that the Queen and court have been killed instead. The head cook admits that she and her staff, unable to bear murdering the kind prince, poisoned all the dishes on the table and put the antidote only in the dish the prince thought to be poisoned.

Refusing the crown, the prince anoints the cook as King and, with her newfound religious beliefs, dons the cook's clothing and wanders the kingdom as a beggar bringing joy and spirituality to the people for the rest of her days, until her time comes, and she goes once more to the Valley of Wounded Deer.