They were brothers, best friends, rivals in love. But, though it seemed that nothing could come between them, only one of them could become master of the dazzling Assyrian Empire that stretched from the Mediterranean to the western borders of India; only one of them could lay claim to the unimaginable riches and power of that Empire; only one of them could know the love of Esharhamat, the woman they both desired. Seven centuries before Christ, the young Assyrian princes Tiglath Ashur and Esarhaddon were forced to compete fiercely against each other, despite a friendship that had endured since childhood. Through the eyes of Tiglath, violence, sex and the never-changing nature of men and women are woven into a breathtaking tapestry of the greatest Empire the world had ever seen.