At long last, after four hundred years, Coriolane Aureus IX, Divine Emperor of Merone, is dead, and the Ring of Tselmun has been destroyed. A fragile peace has taken hold, but enemies old and new are gathering to every side, and the only thing more dangerous than an empire is its fall. The Ring may be gone, but its terrible legacy remains and is only growing stronger, in increasingly shocking and unforeseen ways. Even as the survivors struggle to pick up the pieces and rebuild from the ashes, the odds are ever more against them. There is a far greater cataclysm awaiting than any of them have imagined, and the fate of the world itself is at stake. As the crows gather and the shadows fall, and a dangerous new war threatens to destroy everything for which they have fought and suffered, not all of them-or possibly any of them-will come out alive.