Continued in By Sea or Sand.
 
To everyone north of the impassable Nikut Desert, the Empire of Kisshatim is a mystery. To Crown Prince Menakheref, it's a test—his first diplomatic mission as his father's envoy. The Emperor Beyond the Sands is known by whispers of treachery, ruthlessness, and dark magic. His country is a blank scroll, cut off from Kheref's for decades. Menakheref braces to engage a tyrant, and instead finds a man who defies his every expectation. The emperor is enigmatic but forward-thinking, both master and father to his people, and Menakheref can't help being drawn in by this dangerous, perplexing man—especially when the emperor seems just as fascinated.
 
An attachment like this can't exist between an emperor and a crown prince. Ineluctable duty comes with a crown of any casting. But that doesn't mean the men who wear them are any less human.
 
So when the emperor invites Menakheref to an intimate tryst far away from their capitals, he goes. Even if the meeting is deep in the dunes of the unmapped Nikut Desert, guarded by the secretive nomads who've held its borders for hundreds of years.
 
Politics and war will separate them, their affair maintained by threads of stolen memories and distant missives sent in confidence. And if Menakheref's doubts prove correct, and he's nothing more than a callow piece on the emperor's game board, it could spell disaster for the country and the people he's meant to protect.