The Crimson Wars are over. Those who survived them know better than to believe the peace will last.

Across the realms, old rivalries are stirring. Armies gather beyond contested borders. Assassins move unseen between kingdoms. In courts and war rooms, rulers bargain, threaten and manoeuvre while soldiers prepare to bleed for decisions made far from the battlefield.

And in the slums of Prismara, Jin is trying to stay out of all of it.

A thief with shifting skin, Jin has survived by ensuring nobody discovers what he really is-the last of the Khameleai, a people erased during the very wars others now threaten to begin again.

But the past isn't done with him.

The Shadowblight is spreading. Soldiers are being found twisted into hollow creatures wearing the armour of a neighbouring kingdom thought to have been wiped out.

Veterans who remember the horrors of the last war are being forced to take up their weapons again. Old heroes are discovering that reputation means little when the killing starts. And as accusations cross borders, alliances fracture and assassins hunt from the shadows, one atrocity may be enough to set entire armies marching.

Jin is dragged into the company of soldiers, killers and survivors who have spent their lives fighting wars for kings and queens. Some are heroes, others branded cowards. Some have simply survived long enough for the truth to no longer matter.

But beneath the politics, battles and old hatreds, the real threat has been waiting.

Ancient weapons are returning.

And they answer to Jin.

To understand why, he will have to uncover what really happened during the Crimson Wars-and why something thought destroyed has begun preparing the world for another.

The last war left scars.

The next one may leave nothing.