Elias and Laia are running for their lives. After the events of the Fourth Trial, Martial soldiers hunt the two fugitives as they flee the city of Serra and embark on a perilous journey through the heart of the Empire. Laia is determined to break into Kauf—the Empire’s most secure and dangerous prison—to save her brother, who is key to the survival of the Scholars. Elias, risking his last chance at freedom, is determined to help Laia succeed. Dark forces, both human and otherworldly, work against them as they strive to outsmart their adversaries, which include the bloodthirsty Emperor Marcus, the merciless Commandant, the sadistic Warden of Kauf, and Helene—Elias’s former friend and the Empire’s newest Blood Shrike. Bound to obey Marcus, Helene faces a torturous mission to find the traitor Elias Veturius and the Scholar slave who helped him escape, and to kill them both.