Hok'ee Jareb has nowhere in the galaxy to call home. Abandoned as an infant on the desert planet Korritorjim, he is ascertained by its inhabitants, the Das nervin, to be an aresh-an instrument of war-sent to them by Hok'ee's home tribe, the Xai. In order to maintain a fragile peace-given the nervin tribes' thousand-year history of warring amongst themselves-the Das decide to let Hok'ee live.

Hok'ee is raised an outcast. He does not look anything like the Das nervin around him. He is ostracized, bullied, and abused. But not broken. The injustice Hok'ee experiences and sees around him only serves to ignite a fire, a fierce desire to right the world's many wrongs, to rise up from the dust of his circumstances. Somehow, Hok'ee feels certain that he is destined for more.

Along the way, he is betrayed and abandoned repeatedly until he finally finds one person who sticks by him, who teaches him what it means to truly be loved: his haliin-his soul mate-and childhood friend, Öökyo Varkinis. Together, Hok'ee and Öökyo must navigate a disjointed, perilous world. Together, they discover a danger that no one in nervin space is prepared for. Hok'ee knows that salvation of the nervin race is up to him. But how? And at what cost?

Will love be enough to give Hok'ee the strength he needs to become the person he was always meant to be?