Exhausted from a two-year rescue mission to a distant sector of space, and with resources strained by four thousand extra mouths to feed, the crew of the starship Phoenix yearns for the luxuries of home. But when the ship makes the final jump into atevi space, they learn the worst: supplies to their home station have been cut off; civil war has broken out on the atevi mainland; the powerful Western Association has been overthrown; and Tabini-aiji is missing and may be dead.In a desperate move, Bren Cameron - brilliant human paidhi to the atevi court, and powerful ally of Tabini-aiji, the missing atevi ruler - and Tabini's grandmother llisidi, the aiji-dowager, along with Cajeiri, Tabini's eight-year-old son and heir, succeed in making planetfall.With the help of Bren's brother, they make a dangerous ocean crossing from the human-inhabited island of Mosphiera to the war-torn atevi mainland.Can one elderly ateva and an eight-year-old boy - himself a prime target for assassination - protect Bren in a civil war that most atevi believe he caused? Read Less