Five centuries have past since the Cuians cruelly subjugated the Lledumar, and they still speak for them despite Mainnstaad Officials regularly sent to check on the plight of the Lledumar. The outcome is exactly as Duke Daega Lohwrune predicted. Any Mainnstaad Officials sent to New Xinar to report on their treatment of the Lledumar say all is well. A new Empire, born from Stella Raffaella's confederacy, has changed the galaxy, but the Cuians remain aloof to it. The Lledumar have ached for freedom since year one, expecting a promise to be fulfilled. And every year ask for it but fail. The Cuians claim a threat still exists to them (and the Lledumar) so refuse to free them. The Cuians suddenly announce they intend to join the Empire. The Lledumar are devastated by the news. If the Cuians succeed, the Lledumar will lose any chance at freedom. The Empire's Mainnstaad, which controls membership, expects honesty and openness from potential members; no skeletons in the closest. So, in a clever move hailed by the Lledumarian High Council, intended to expose the Cuians and cast doubt on their honesty, supported by an independent group of Lledumarians called the Lledumarian Freedom Forum (LFF), the speaker of the next emancipation talks invites the Mainnstaad to arbitrate and they agree. One Cuian Senator, Korrs Verntinus, takes his mandate too seriously and secretly bribes the Mainnstaad Officials, bringing a positive result for the Cuians. One of the Mainnstaad Officials, however, has a loose tongue, and news of the bribery gets back to the Lledumar. The Lledumarian High Council feels defeated, but for the LFF, it's a call to action. They devise a cunning plan to implicate Verntinus and almost succeeds, but for a conscientious IBP senior investigator named Clynne Raxxman, who not only figures who committed the murder and why, but unearths a plot to destroy the Cuians. His survival now depends on a stranger; someone with the means to destroy an Empire; change the face of the galaxy.