Just before he's put before the Queen to be executed, Kellen is given a strange piece of advice from one of his fellow prisoners: kill the Queen and he'll be given clemency by those who take power.

Even Reichis has come to appreciate having a noble purpose - so long as no one minds him committing the occasional act of theft from the royal treasury. But everything changes when Kellen's own father, Ke'heops, arrives at the palace with crucial information which will provide Kellen with his most impossible dilemma yet.