Once the glory of Akhenaten's reign, the imperial city of Akhet-Aten now lies tangled in the raveled ends of old plots; wrecked, abandoned and rumored to be cursed. When Commander Khonsu is assigned to escort a royal delegation to the deserted capital to investigate reopening its quarries, he finds the task anything but routine, beginning with the expedition's leader, Lord Nebamun, the second ranking priest of Ptah. Nebamun is a man without a past who has no fear of ghosts, curses or the damned spirits said to prowl the surrounding hills and scream in the night. As Khonsu watches the man move through the echoes of old strife and treachery, he begins to realize that Lord Nebamun has come to put the spirits of the city to rest once and for all, whatever the cost to himself. But the question that grips Khonsu, as the shadows thicken and the threat intensifies, is whether Nebamun might be a danger to them all.