Twenty-five hundred years ago, the Guardian Corps liberated the population of planet Kerguelen from a fifty-year reign of tyrannical oppression. In the years since, the corps has selflessly protected the rights of the people against enemies and helped the planet rise to the pinnacles of social and technological achievement. Disease and poverty were eliminated; the fight for natural resources was ended; and the diverse races and ideologies of the twenty-five provinces were governed by one political structure and united under one god. But as the population of Kerguelen prepares to celebrate its greatest scientific discovery, the unthinkable occurs: a Guardian is accused of treason and inciting sedition. Thrust into the duty of apprehending her fellow Guardian, Commander Prior discovers the truth behind the growing unrest. To save Kerguelen's people, Prior must join a secret fraternal order in a battle against an ancient religious sect bent on controlling their world-a sect once thought to be extinct, but now apparently in full operation. Despite her reluctance, Prior knows the only way to prevent Kerguelen from falling into a dark age of despair is to defeat the Argent, the legendary entity conjured by the religious sect.