Ceres Mara Sant isn't here to be a hero. An assassin from a secretive brotherhood, he's forsaken his birthright as crown prince of an intergalactic empire for life in the shadows. He thrives, now, not on politics and posturing but on getting in and getting out and leaving no evidence behind but questions. Rumors about him swirl like haunting echoes, that he's given his soul to darkness in exchange for his almost preternatural skills and for a chance at the one thing he really wants: revenge on the men who killed his family and stole his future.

When he finds himself on Mahima IV, however, he's not expecting anything to happen. He's there to do a contract job but, this time, instead of chasing some bloated idiot who crossed the wrong loan shark he's hunting one of his own. Dharun was once his best friend and closest confidant but, in going rogue, he's become a stranger. Assassins turning on each other isn't common; their conditioning should've prevented this from happening at all and Ceres worries that Dharun might be hiding even more than he knows…and that he's here to sell his secrets to the highest bidder, putting them all in danger.

Yet fate takes an unexpected turn. Amid the squalor and despair, a grubby-faced urchin emerges to make his life impossible. Fearless and defiant, she thwarts him at every turn and then lectures him with her moralizing nonsense. He can't stand her but, as he soon learns, she's got problems of her own and for some reason he feels compelled to help. As their paths intertwine amidst the oppressive gloom, an unspoken tension simmers—and a forbidden attraction grows, one that might lead them both to the brink of madness.