Ash is a member of a sect known as Rōshun, assassins who offer protection through the threat of vendetta. He is a man still haunted after many years by the death of his son. Forced by his ailing health to take on an apprentice, he chooses Nico, a young man living in the besieged city of Bar-Khos, whose own father is long gone, a deserter of his family. At the time, Nico is hungry, desperate, and alone in a city that finds itself teetering on the brink.

When the Holy Matriarch’s son murders a woman under the protection of the Rōshun, he forces the sect to seek his life in retribution.

Riding at the head of her army, Holy Matriarch of Mann plans to conquer the fortress city of Bar-Khos, whose walls have held the empire at bay for ten long years of siege. Ash is a man who would see her dead before that. The ailing Roshun assassin is determined to seek vengeance for the Matriarch's previous crimes. But such a course of retribution goes against everything his life has taught him.

Meanwhile, Ché, a trained killer of the state, watches as the Mannian army slaughters their way across the remnants of the free world, and questions whether he believes the doctrines he has been trained to follow.

As the empire of Mann threatens the world with enslavement, only a single island nation continues to stand in its way - the Free Ports of the democras. For ten years they have held their own, but now the empire draws its noose even tighter over them.

Rallying to its defence are those from the secretive network known as the Few, including the cripple and troubleshooter Coya Zeziké. Coya has hopes of enlisting the forest contrarè in the aid of the besieged city of Bar-Khos. With him is Shard, the only Dreamer of the Free Ports, a woman capable of manipulating waking reality or the strange dimensions of the Black Dream.

A time of reckoning has begun.

For ten years the Free Ports held their own against the despotic empire of Mann - but the empire is now poised to destroy them. The crucial fortress city of Bar-Khos is under attack and its freedom depends on a few unsteady hands.

Betrayal could come from any side, at any moment. While chaos reigns, Nico will search for his captive mother and attempt to defend his people. And Shard the Dreamer will hunt for legendary charts, which could yet save the city. However, a Red Guard officer gone rogue could bring about the end, and a visitor from another world has a hidden agenda.