Sasham Varan was a patriot, a true believer in the Reborn Empire. But after a secret project both gave him outlawed psionic powers and revealed that Prime Monitor Shagrath, head of the Monitor Corps and right hand of the Emperor, was a monster hiding behind a human face, Varan became a fugitive and the most-wanted man in the Empire. With the aid of the enigmatic trader The Eonwyl, reptilian psi-scientist Sooovickalassa, and the immense and far too dangerously cheerful astrophysicist Guvthor, Varan must discover the true nature of Shagrath and his invisible allies - and a way to fight them. And back home, in the center of the Empire, Taelin Mel'Tasne - Varan's closest friend - begins his own perilous quest to work his way to the center of Shagrath's plans... without even understanding what he faces! Varan will meet new allies, old enemies - and eventually must seek out a world that became nothing but legend and myth eighteen thousand years before, to find the answers he must have... before returning to face an even more terrifying danger!