Vardia is descending into chaos. And that makes it a good time to be a freebooter. Never one to miss an opportunity, Captain Darien Frey has hit on a lucrative plan: stealing Awakener relics, and selling them back to them through the feared pirate, and his former finacee, Trinica Dracken. Things are finally looking good for the Ketty Jay and her crew... until the Shaklemores, bounty hunters to the aristocracy, catch up with them, anyway. They kidnap Crake, one of Frey's most valued crewmen, and vanish with him. Crake is wanted for murder — he has been for years — but is his kidnapping in the name of justice or is something altogether more sinister going on behind the scenes? If Captain Frey wants his man back, he and the Ketty Jay are going to have to find out — even if the quest leads them into the heart of the civil war, to the treason and invasion threat beyond.
