A crownless prince born to herald the future. An exiled princess raised to survive the past. And the daughter of the gods who must save them all. Gaius has lived his entire life within the protective world of Rome and his beloved grandfather, the shrewd, aging Augustus. However, when the empire's treasured heir is sent to bring peace to the eastern frontier, he'll learn the treacherous shadow cast by Augustus' desires will follow him to the very edge of the world he knows. And quite possibly beyond… Drusilla has grown up in the amicable security of Augustus' world, despite being the granddaughter of his great enemy, the notorious Cleopatra. But the unrest that finds Gaius in the east will find its way to her African homeland as well and young Dru will have to summon all her Ptolemaic strength to overcome the same snares that brought down her brilliant family before her... Aetia has spent the long, wandering years of her life protecting the fragile peace of her brother-cousin Augustus' empire as his most indomitable agent and serving the gods of the Egyptian underworld as their most powerful link to the lands of the living. But the daughter of Julius Caesar has always had a will of her own that neither the princeps of Rome nor the denizens of the Duat can fully control, and lucky for them too. For the infamous Umbra Augusti will need all her cunning to defend the heirs of the Caesars and the Ptolemies. Including herself...
