The new constitutional monarch Douglas Campbell and his reluctant Champion Lewis Deathstalker find themselves in deep and treacherous waters on Campbell's first day in Parliament, but the king's Head of Protocol, Anne Barclay, and his betrothed, the beautiful opera star Jesamine Flowers, have him prepared well. That is, until the political battlefield becomes a literal one. An assassination attempt will call some of Douglas's most cherished relationships into question. Elsewhere, the Empire's greatest Paragon begins assembling his network of treachery, designed to destroy everything Douglas Campbell holds dear.