I can easily divide my life into two parts—before her and after.

Hudson Pierce has led a life few others could even imagine. With money and power at his fingertips, he's wanted for almost nothing. He's never experienced love, however, and he's seen few examples of it in his dysfunctional family. The ridiculous notion of romance has always intrigued him. He's studied it, controlled it, manipulated it, and has yet to understand it.

Until he meets Alayna Withers.

Now, the games he's played in his quest for comprehension can finally come to an end. Or are they just beginning?

Told from his point of view, Hudson fills the holes in his love story with Alayna Withers. His past and relationship with his long-time friend Celia is further revealed and light is shed on his actions during his courtship with Alayna.

Alexandria, 3rd century. The splendors of Egypt have faded, and the country has become a gray province of a decaying Roman Empire. The era is changing: Christianity is the official religion, but it has not taken root among the people. The old gods resist death, and magic and science, administration and sacred worship coexist in the narrow streets of the sprawling metropolis beneath the famous lighthouse.

Indifferent to the changes and decay, and oblivious to the barbarian invasions that are crumbling the borders of the Western Empire, life in the court and palaces is polarized by the two great human passions: love and power.

This is the magnificent setting where the particular destiny of three characters is played out: Ahram, a powerful navigator, emblem of courage and masculine strength; Krito, an androgynous philosopher, symbol of rationality and character consistency; and an elusive and sensual woman who possesses the ability to change her name. A woman who will enter Ahram's life when Anoptis, the great steward of the villa of Tanuris, buys her for his master in the slave market.

Ahram falls suddenly in love with the girl, who claims to be called Irenia, and between them begins an intense love story full of sensuality.

But, as Krito will soon suspect, behind Irenia lie mysterious circumstances, more enigmatic than her rescue on the coast by coral fishermen, even more so than her initiation into a group of religious women who believe in the feminine nature of Jesus: a fantastic and almost blasphemous transformation that could take the love story with Ahram beyond death or destroy it prematurely.