The disappearance of a young woman, who had become obsessed with the occult, takes Detective Kusan out of the city of Me'tra and far to the south. At the Hells Gates are sprawling camps spread through the desert ravines where thousands of refugees live, fleeing from the war in the south. It is in this nest of the desperate and vipers alike that Kusan finds far more than she expected.

When the worlds of occult magic and the technological empire built by the Wynar collide, there can only be one outcome.