A wife. A husband. A son or daughter. Mother or father, aunt or uncle: each of us has lost one or more of these. It has touched every family in Elsweyr, the dreadful epidemic, the terrible plague—the Knahaten Flu. It started in Senchal, on Sweet Street in the Black Keirgo slums, among the skooma-struck. At first the city elders dismissed it as a toxin in the goods, but then it spread to Dagi's Pride and Squint-Eye, and was reported from the docks in Alabaster as well. And one more thing: hope. Hope that Elsweyr would survive. For now is the time of the Dominion.