Ensign Nivpul Exavent has succeeded in bringing his grandfather's ship home after a spacial anomaly stranded him far beyond the edge of charted space.
With June Trynamour, the outsider who stole his heart, on his arm, and a representative of a prince of the realm watching his every move, any semblance of the sheltered life from which he'd been ripped so long ago proved out of reach.
As circumstances spiral out of hand, Niv's grandfather convinces him to take June off station and to hide at a safe location until they received an all clear. It never comes, replaced by a plea to use what they knew about the uncharted space from which they'd returned to disrupt the outside support backing a powerful Duke with sights on the Imperial throne.
Where his last journey through that region of space required the kind of subterfuge and misdirection June excelled at, this trip would force Niv to face his fear of stepping out of the shadows to make people who didn't know him or his people listen.
