Following on from his triumphs in The Karasor, Prince Narikin is now a special ambassador to the Emperor. But everything he thought he'd won turns out to be an illusion. Despite Emperor's blessing, the other clans refuse to believe his story about phantoms and mantids and his father still wants him dead. Worse still, the Eirenarch, the oldest living Penti, tells him his people have lost the favour of the Lords, the makers of the Evigone. The Eirenarch...