The Wasp Empire’s armies are on the move. The city of Tark will be first to feel their might, now preparing for siege. And within its walls, Salma and Totho will take a stand alongside their Ant-kinden brethren. But they’ll face weaponry and numbers such as the Lowlands have never seen. Meanwhile, the empire's secret service has deemed Stenwold Maker too dangerous to live. So Major Thalric is dispatched to eliminate Stenwold and destroy his beloved city of Collegium. For if this centre of learning is lost, it will crush all hope of intelligent resistance.

The city states of the Lowlands have lived in peace and prosperity for decades: bastions of civilisation and sophistication. That peace is about to end. In far-off corners, an ancient Empire has been conquering city after city with its highly trained armies and sophisticated warmaking.... And now it's set its sights on a new prize. Only the ageing Stenwold Maker, spymaster, artificer and statesman, can see the threat. It falls upon his shoulders to open the eyes of his people - as soon a tide will sweep down over the Lowlands and burn away everything in its path.

Uctebri’s long search for the Shadow Box is finally over. Now the vampiric sorcerer can begin his dark ritual. The Wasp-kinden’s emperor believes this will grant him immortality, but Uctebri has his own plans - for the emperor and the empire. The mighty Wasp armies are on the march. And now war is imminent, spymaster Stenwold can finally separate allies from false friends. For the empire won’t stop until a black and gold flag hangs over Collegium, Stenwold's home city. 

Lee thought she’d lost Mal, but now she’s miraculously returned. But what happened that day on the moors? And where has she been all this time? Mal’s reappearance hasn’t gone unnoticed by MI5 officers either, and Lee isn’t the only one with questions. Julian Sabreur is investigating an attack on top physicist Kay Amal Khan. This leads Julian to clash with agents of an unknown power - and they may or may not be human. His only clue is grainy footage showing a woman who supposedly died on Bodmin Moor.

Thousands of years ago, Earth’s terraforming program took to the stars. On the world they called Nod, scientists discovered alien life - but it was their mission to overwrite it with the memory of Earth. Then humanity’s great empire fell, and the program’s decisions were lost to time. Aeons later, humanity and its new spider allies detected fragmentary radio signals between the stars. They dispatched an exploration vessel, hoping to find cousins from old Earth. But those ancient terraformers woke something on Nod better left undisturbed. And it’s been waiting for them.