In 1928, when timid ten-year-old Nate learns that his parents have been lost at sea, he joins his father's cousin on a flight to Arabia where they must oversee the death and rebirth of the phoenix, thus beginning his training as a "beastologist."

In a mid-ninth-century Bedouin camp in the Arabian Desert, a horse is born to a prized Arabian war mare who dies during the birth, and the foal is raised with dreams of continuing her mother's glory as a war mare. Includes facts about Arabian horses and their importance to Bedouin tribes.