Summary

The war that the Wasp Empire brought against all the cities of the Lowlands has ended in a stalemate and an uneasy truce.

The Mantis-kinden weaponsmaster Tisamon, in his dying moments, destroyed the Shadow Box that held all the darkness of the Forest Darakyon and the twisted history of his race. In the same clash, the Emperor himself died, as did the Mosquito-kinden Uctebri, who had sought to use the Box to make the Emperor’s sister, Seda, an immortal puppet-queen. Now Seda has become Empress of a people never ruled by a woman before, and while she tries to hold onto power, the rest of the world is safe from Imperial ambition.

At Seda’s side is Thalric, once an his so-calledofficer in the Rekef, the Imperial secret service, and then a fugitive on the run from his own people. His war record is one of dubious deeds done for both sides, but he provides Seda with a male figurehead while she rebuilds her Empire.

In Collegium, Stenwold Maker works on preparing his city for a return of hostilities that he sees as inevitable. Reminders of the toll that the war took are all around him, though. As well as Tisamon himself, it is the loss of the Moth-kinden, Achaeos, that cuts most deeply. Dying of his injuries during a ritual that invoked the power of the Darakyon, Achaeos left behind two women whose lives are shattered by his death. One is Stenwold’s niece Cheerwell, Achaeos’s lover. The other is Tisamon’s daughter, Tynisa, who gave him the wound that eventually killed him.