As empires war and immortals plot from the shadows, one family fights for the future of the world.
The world has known precarious peace for generations, but the unexplained assassination of one powerful noblewoman unveils an immortal conspiracy more than ten thousand years in the making.
Endarion and Estrid, jaded generals who share a complicated romantic past, are drawn back onto the battlefield when the opposing empires they serve declare war. Once lovers, now rivals, they are each the other’s greatest enemy.
Meanwhile, in a viper’s nest of a city older than humanity itself, Endarion’s niece Sephara hunts down the assassin in hopes of halting the conflict before it can engulf the entire continent. Her investigation will force her on a collision course with backstabbing nobles, immortal rulers thought long dead, and assassins who wield the very shadows themselves.
Across the continent, bastard-born Tali, Endarion’s youngest daughter, awakens to a magic long thought eradicated. But her powers make her a target to powerful immortal factions; perhaps the same immortals her family now unwittingly fights against.
As empires war and the immortal creators of humanity emerge from supposed extinction, one family is dragged into the centre of a planet-spanning conflict.