Shaliyah now has a new name: Mother of Victories. In the wake of the devastating battle before her walls, everything has changed: the East is rising, bringing equal measures of hope and despair to the magical world of Urte. And while the armies of east and west clash in ever more-bloody conflict, emperors, Inquisitors, Souldrinkers and assassins all have their attention turned elsewhere as they hunt the Scytale of Corineus. The artefact is in the hands of the unlikely guardians, what they choose to do with it could change the world forever