Fliss knows all about her ancestors, the Travelers, who were forced to land on Fjern thousands of years ago, but when it comes to the Gyr-the enhanced warriors who protect the people of Fjern from the monsters that inhabit the planet-she's in the dark, even though she is one herself. There's plenty of ceremony and arcane tradition set up around who receives the gyra-the nanotech that makes the warriors the super-protectors that they are-but Fliss doesn't care about any of that, she just wants to brush off the dust of the tiny mining settlement she's been protecting all her life and leave the combative relationship she has with her father far behind her.

When the Gyr who offered her a way out of her old life dies in spectacular fashion, though, she comes to the attention of a host of powerful people, both the Gyr and the administrators from the institution that controls them, alike. Fliss is about to find out more about the Gyr-and herself-than she ever dreamed of.

Gyr leader, Hannu Kardenian, thought he was being called to investigate the strange death of a fellow warrior, but what he finds instead is a woman who breaks every rule he's ever lived by. Everything about her sets his own gyra on fire, and when she comes to the attention of Gyr Command-the institution that mandates the Gyr's very existence-he is determined to make sure she never ends up in their clutches, even if he has to upend the very structure of Fjern itself.