A gilded cage is still a cage. Banished from the capital to her home in Annanais, Lady Belwyn chafes under the restrictions of her handler, who controls what she reads and who she sees. She can't continue to search for the truth of the Port Ambs bombing if she can't leave her makeshift prison. Now she's getting letters from other women around the Empire, other widows, looking for answers, too. Could their shared pain be a way out? A way to help not only her, but those like her, to find answers?

Aton Askins is making the most of his new employer's largesse, buying a new home and trying to build the family he's been missing since Port Ambs. Now he's been tasked with finding the Circle of Rend, another ancient artifact of the departed gods. That will require him to sign on to an expedition in the Southern Islands led by a brutal explorer. He has to do it to maintain his comfortable new life, but what will be the cost? Does he really know what his employer is up to?

As the Unari Empire continues to fracture, Belwyn and Aton are closer than ever to the answers they want, but they may not like the answers they find in the second installment of the thrilling Unari Empire trilogy.