The principality of Corisanda, conquered by Charis, is seething after the murder of Prince Hector and his eldest son, but growing reformist sentiments help the regency council of the young heir Deivin to eliminate the hostile network of the Inquisition in the capital, and then the conspiracy of the aristocrats. In the center of the Temple lands, the city of Zion, the inquisitors arrest the reformists of the highest clergy of the Church along with their loved ones, extort monstrous confessions through torture and sentence them to the most brutal execution in order to strengthen the power of the Grand Inquisitor. To fight the Charisian Empire, the Church builds huge fleets in the states it controls, and Charis destroys or forces the surrender of four times the combined forces of the Temple and Kharchong lands. And in the family of Emperor Caileb and Empress Charlien, a new addition was born - Crown Princess Eilana was born!