What if heresy proves the only way to avoid a holy war? Such a war threatens the Inland Empire and the Holy Oregon. It stalks the Mother Metropolitan, as confident of its success as a Malheur Cobra hunting a barn rat. Only the unification of two powerful clans offers any chance of escape. But the proposed bride despises the thought of marriage, and the groom might carry a genetic weakness that will doom the effort entirely. The situation appears hopeless, and the auguries speak of annihilation and the wrath of the Goddess and the God. As the clans prepare for war, Vlod, magus to the bride's clan, Clan Iredale, works to reinvent an invincible weapon. A fine precaution. A secret ray of hope. But the weapon embodies an ancient and malignant heresy. Its use might save Clan Iredale, but its very existence will drown the clans in a river of heresy and blood. Ulricka's Gambit, The Assassins of Harmony, Book 2, weaves a dystopian tale, set several centuries in the future, in which the forces of orthodoxy and heresy break loose, threatening to obliterate everything before them.