The smoke rising alone across the desert cannot carry away the vows made in a secluded chamber, and shadows behind vermilion walls cannot conceal bloody power struggles. When the back of a battle-hardened general disappears amid the fires of war, the fate of a sheltered young woman is swept into a vortex of power. Love and hatred are tempered in troubled times; life and death rise and fall amid conspiracies. The faith she protects in her darkest hour and the truth he keeps hidden in the abyss both await a reunion that will cross the boundary between life and death, in this contest where the realm itself is the game board.
