When a scientist is murdered after finding signs of alien magic in an archeological dig, Mage Damien Montgomery, Hands from the Mage-King of Mars, is delivered to investigate both the murder as well as the alien runes.

His investigation is interrupted whenever a mysterious dispatch attacks the ruins with weaponry only available to the Martian Navy. Despite saving the dig site, Montgomery is left with an increase of queries than answers.

His investigations reveal questions about the origin of his magic and his nation-and lead him back to the one place that should be safe and sound: the courtroom of the Mage-King of Mars.