After years in exile, Nyxnissa so Dasheem is back in service to the bel dames, a sisterhood of elite government assassins tasked with eliminating deserters and traitors.
The end of a centuries-long holy war has flooded the streets of Nasheen with unemployed - and unemployable - soldiers whose frustrations have brought the nation to the brink of civil war.
Not everyone likes this tenuous and unpredictable "peace," however, and somebody has kidnapped a key politician whose death could trigger a bloody government takeover.
With aliens in the sky and revolution on the ground, Nyx assembles a team of mad magicians, torturers and mutant shape-shifters for an epic journey across a flesh-eating desert in search of a man she's not actually supposed to kill.