she succeeds in rescuing Sagan and slaying Abdiel—but at the cost of several lives, including her own. Sagan, fulfilling a prophecy, is forced to kill her with his own hand to prevent Abdiel's final blow from driving her insane. The planetoid is then destroyed; Sagan disappears, presumed lost. The novel closes with Dion's coronation. He welcomes John Dixter into the government as the Lord of Admiralty; says good-bye to Tusk and Nola, the only friends he's ever had; prepares to meet his fiancee for the first time and marry her moments after; and welcomes Archbishop Fideles—Brother Daniel—as the new head of the galactic clergy. At the abbey of the Order of Adamant, monks and lay people watch the ceremony with joy, including a new member, Brother Paenitens. Ghost Legion Dion, twenty-two years old, has been king of the galaxy for two years. His marriage to his wife Astarte has always been loveless, but recent desperation has caused him to open an illicit affair with Kamil. Xris is contacted by Dixter and asked to investigate an alarming development: something has stolen the space-rotation bomb—and literally walked through walls to do it. Tusk, for his part, is having trouble with his interplanetary taxi service, and is approached—or rather hijacked—by recruiters for a new mercenary army called the Ghost Legion. Maigrey, pacing the celestial halls of heaven, chafes with her inability to influence the mortal plane, and eventually breaks Divine Law to help move things along. When Dion develops a sudden sexual interest in Astarte, she realizes concurrently that he must be having an affair, and also that she herself is pregnant. Archbishop Fideles (formerly Brother Daniel) discovers a troubling secret: that Amodius Starfire, Dion's uncle and former ruler of the galaxy, may have had an incestuous heir. Brother Paenitens sheds his cassock for his former life as Derek Sagan and informs Dion of this threat. Sagan then flies to the last known location of explorer Garth Pantha, who took the child off of Amodius's hands. There he finds a planet, Vallombrosa, shielded from conventional sensors by life forms made of dark matter. On it, Pantha and Amodius's son, Flaim Starfire, await, and to them Sagan swears his allegiance. Finally, Astarte leaves Dion and returns to her mother DiLuna on the planet Ceres. When DiLuna discovers Dion's affair, she sends assassins to kill Kamil, and Astarte hires Xris to help her protect her