Gavin Guile is dying. He'd thought he had five years left; now he has less than one. With fifty thousand refugees, a bastard son, and an ex-fiancee who may have learned his darkest secret, Gavin has problems on every side. All magic in the world is running wild and threatens to destroy the Seven Satrapies. The old gods are being reborn, and their army of color wights is unstoppable. The only salvation may be the brother whose freedom and life Gavin...

Without the protection of his father, Kip Guile will have to face a master of shadows alone as his grandfather moves to choose a new Prism and put himself in power. With Teia and Karris, Kip will have to use all his wits to survive a secret war between noble houses, religious factions, rebels, and an ascendant order of hidden assassins.

Gavin Guile is the Prism, the most powerful man in the world. He is high priest and emperor, a man whose power, wit, and charm are all that preserves a tenuous peace. But Prisms never last, and Guile knows exactly how long he has left to live: five years to achieve five impossible goals. But when Guile discovers he has a son, born in a far kingdom after the war that put him in power, he must decide how much he's willing to pay to protect a secret...

Gavin Guile is dying. He'd thought he had five years left; now he has less than one. With fifty thousand refugees, a bastard son, and an ex-fiancee who may have learned his darkest secret, Gavin has problems on every side. All magic in the world is running wild and threatens to destroy the Seven Satrapies. The old gods are being reborn, and their army of color wights is unstoppable. The only salvation may be the brother whose freedom and life Gavin...

As the old gods awaken and satrapies splinter, the Chromeria races to find its lost Prism, the only man who may be able to stop catastrophe. But Gavin Guile is enslaved on a pirate galley. Worse, Gavin no longer has the one thing that defined him, the ability to draft. Without the protection of his father, Kip Guile will have to face a master of shadows alone as his grandfather moves to choose a new Prism and put himself in power.