When evidence emerges hinting that a long lost starship wasn’t destroyed after all, Ishir Jha has to investigate. His father sent the last desperate message from the ship before it was lost in a battle with pirates.

Ish must learn the truth, even if he has to do it alone. But his husband Finn Moran isn’t going to let him run off alone and get killed in the outer system, where the influence of the Li pirate empire is spreading again, this time under the command of the daughter of the warlord who once terrorized the colonies and the ships that plied their trade there.

But Li Xhing doesn’t want to terrorize. She wants to rule.

When Finn and Ishir end up as prisoners at Li’s stronghold, The Red Palace, Finn appears ready to accept a recruitment offer to join their captor’s ranks, since the other alternative is a life of slavery. Ishir can only wonder if his husband is losing his mind.

But thanks to Finn, plans are being laid elsewhere, to breach the Red Palace’s impenetrable defensive barrier. One that only a few people can navigate, all of them ready to die before giving up the secret.

The plans will change the destiny of the whole outer system and set Finn and Ishir onto a whole new path. .