Dr. Lilin Gau Mei Wu struggles to be two things at once: an entomologist pollinating crops on her exoplanet farm and heir to her grandmother’s Interstellar Empire and the Dragon Throne. Lilin’s estranged mother has already abdicated her duties, leaving no room for Lilin to falter. She aches to feed the hungry and the poor with gene-tweaked fruit, preferring to solve the food shortage on her cozy farm than strengthen her family's dynastic powers. When dark monsters infest the Empire, highborns protect only their own and let monsters eat the slum’s residents. Lilin is convinced her knowledge of insects will be the very thing to save the slum's residents.

While using augmented pheromones and insect communication technology to hunt monsters in the slums, she finds herself entangled with the leader of the unrest, Puren Renzhi, a tall, striking freedom fighter determined to take down the Empire for its callous disregard of her people in the slums. Seeing an advantage in the connection, Lilin strikes a precarious deal with Renzhi: she will silence all leads on the rebels' movements, in exchange for Renzhi's help in hunting monsters.

Involving herself with Renzhi invites more trouble than she expects. Highborns see the princess as a pawn or a threat to their vying for imperial favor, and Lilin's insect augmentation—tampered with by highborn scientists—has sinister roots and unforseen consequences. As Lilin and Renzhi fight a forbidden attraction to each other, Lilin navigates a deadly decadent court and its machinations, hungry monsters, and dangerous dynasty secrets. But some secrets are meant to be buried, and Lilin risks losing the only family she's ever known for a magnetic but vengeful rebel who might just want her dead.