Series: Book 5 in the Shadows of the Apt series
Rating: ***
Tags: EN-Fantasy, Lang:en
Summary
The war with the Wasp Empire has ended
in a bitter stalemate, and Collegium has nothing to show for it
but wounded veterans. Cheerwell Maker finds herself crippled in
ways no doctor can mend, haunted by ghosts of the past that she
cannot appease, seeking for meaning in a city that no longer
seems like home. The Empress Seda is regaining control over
those imperial cities who refused to bow the knee to her, but
she draws her power from something more sinister than mere
armies and war machines. Only her consort, the former spymaster
Thalric, knows the truth, and now the assassins are coming and
he finds his life and his loyalties under threat yet again. Out
past the desert of the Nem the ancient city of Khanaphes awaits
them both, with a terrible secret entombed beneath its
stones...