"In a direct follow-up to his penultimate book in the Sundering series, The Sentinel, New York Times best-selling author Troy Denning thrusts conflicted paladin Kleef Kenric into a tangled web of corruption that will force him to confront an evil greater than he's ever faced before. In the wake of the events of the Sundering, Kleef has only recently returned to the city of Marsember when he stumbles upon a dark secret. Corrupt watchmen are passing convicts to an illithid slaver. Even worse, the exchange is a standing arrangement that one the city fathers believe is for the common good, since it keeps the monstrous illithids from preying on more innocent members of society. However, the further Kleef traces the threads of deceit, the more tangled they seem and the deadlier things become, especially when Kleef begins to realize that something far darker than illithids lurks beneath the streets of Marsember."