When the Sith ship Omen crash-landed on Kesh two thousand years ago, the crew encountered native barbarism and superstition. Now a violent millennium has reduced the Lost Tribe of the Sith to a similar state. While Sith teachings are remembered, honored, and violently practiced, knowledge of the Lost Tribe's true origins has all but vanished..

With a dark age imperiling the Sith, the future rests in the hands of the unlikeliest of people: Caretaker Hilts, the official keeper of lore. Mild-mannered by Sith standards, the aged Hilts hopes to use the wisdom of the ancients to reunite his people. But the truth he uncovers becomes anything but the Tribe's salvation. Rather, he may have set loose forces leading to its destruction — and his own.

Cast into slavery by the machinations of the Sith, Ori Kitai believes she’s found her way back into the Lost Tribe — and perhaps a whole lot more. Ori’s discovery of a second starship gives her the opportunity to avenge the humiliations heaped on her family by the decrepit Grand Lord. Indeed, she could turn their entire society upside down — offering escape from their planetary prison.

But Ori encounters resistance from a surprising person: the seemingly humble farmer who took her in: a man with a secret past and an agenda of his own. He cannot allow Ori Kitai to unleash the Lost Tribe on an unsuspecting galaxy. But how can he stop the woman he loves without destroying them both?