Auria and the Sforza dynasty are under threat from a rebellion forming within the senate itself. The conspiracy against the life of the Emperor unites some families while others remain loyal, and the situation unleashes a chain of ambiguities and conflicts that provoke the tension between the clans. In addition, the Normidon guard, charged with the Emperor's safety, seem condemned to expire, as does the dynasty that has sustained the empire for over three thousand years. The priority must be, then, to save its last descendants, and the Normidon Fabio Bertucci and the veteran mercenary Maximo Eleazar offer their service to the cause. The main plot winds through a net of apparently secondary threads that open up a mysterious infraworld of dark and violent forces.