Lehr's struggle against the Warlord carries him throughout the galaxy : the asylum planet of Shadowa, where the guilty and innocent alike can escape the past and build a new future; the world of Swarnia, inhabited by a fragmented people who must learn to work together to survive, and the mysterious sector of space known as the Forbidden Zone, an empty anomaly of nothingness, where none who have entered have ever returned.

Wayne Lehr quickly discovers he can no longer spend his life in self-imposed isolation; he once again becomes embroiled in an escalating web of deceit and adventure, where the Akkadian must reach into the deepest depths of his heart to summon the courage to overcome the Warlord and his evil designs, and resurrect the sleeping spirit lying dormant in his heart.