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There is a cancer at the heart of the mighty Cerani Empire: a plague that attacks young and old, rich and poor alike. Geometric patterns spread across the skin, until you die in agony, or become a Carrier, doing the bidding of an evil intelligence, the Pattern Master. Anyone showing the tell-tale marks is put to death; that is Emperor Beyon's law...but now the pattern is running over the Emperor's own arms. His body servants have been executed, he ignores his wives, but he is doomed, for soon the pattern will reach his face. While Beyon's agents scour the land for a cure, Sarmin, the Emperor's only surviving brother, awaits his bride, Mesema, a windreader from the northern plains. Unused to the Imperial Court's stifling protocols and deadly intrigues, Mesema has no one to turn to but an aging imperial assassin, the Emperor's Knife.

As long-planned conspiracies boil over into open violence, the invincible Pattern Master appears from the deep desert. Only three people stand in his way: a lost prince, a world-weary killer, and a young girl from the steppes who once saw a path in a pattern — a path that might save them all.

After a lifetime locked in his tower room, Sarmin has come into his own. He is the crowned emperor; he has wed Mesema of the horse tribes; the Pattern-Master is dead. Everything should be happy-ever-after.

But war has ignited in the north, in the Palace intricate plots blossom around the Petal Throne...

And in the darkness of Sarmin's room, the remnants of the Many haunt his thoughts.

The worst damage left by the Pattern Master is about to take Sarmin unawares.

Nooria is at breaking point. The nothing bleeds out the very essence of all, of stone, silk – and souls. Sarmin thought he had stopped it, but it is spreading towards Cerana – and he is powerless to halt the destruction.

Even as Cerana fills with refugees, the Yrkmen armies arrive, offering to spare Sarmin's people if they will convert to the Mogyrk faith.

Time is running out for Sarmin and Mesema: the Mage's Tower is cracked; the last mage, sent to find a mysterious pattern-worker in the desert, has vanished; and Sarmin believes his kidnapped brother Daveed still has a part to play.

The walls are crumbling around them...