Corta Helio, one of the five family-corporations that rule the moon, has fallen. Its riches are divided up among its many enemies, its survivors scattered. Eighteen months have passed. The remaining Helio children, Lucasinho and Luna, are under the protection of the powerful Asamoahs, while Robson, still reeling from witnessing his parents' violent deaths, is now a ward-virtually a hostage-of Mackenzie Metals. And the last appointed heir, Lucas, has vanished from the surface of the moon. Only Lady Sun, dowager of Taiyang, suspects that Lucas Corta is not dead-and that he is still a major player in the game. After all, Lucas always was the schemer, and even in death he would go to any lengths to take back everything and build a new Corta Helio, more powerful than before. But Corta Helio needs allies; and to find them the fleeing son undertakes an audacious, impossible journey-to Earth. In an unstable lunar environment, the shifting loyalties and political machinations of each family reach the zenith of their most fertile plots as outright war erupts.