Once the Erinye were human, until they forsook their bodies for a timeless, virtual existence, then lashed out like jealous ghosts to destroy all they had left behind. One starship escaped the holocaust that consumed the Earth, and fled across the light-years to ice-locked Midgard, a planet barely suited to human life. Now, more than a century later, life is a struggle for the descendants of the first colonists, Earth is but a wisp of memory, and an alienated group marches against the ageless, forbidding ruler Lady Amalfi, determined to command their own destinies. But the rebels are divided, and a starship is on its way from Earth--and there will be no hope for any of them if the dreaded Erinye are on board.

Inspired by John Webster's immortal revenge tragedy The Duchess of Malfi, this is an unforgettable epic of loyalty and betrayal, loss and remembrance: a profoundly stirring glimpse into the changeless contradictions that shape, for good and for evil, the human soul.