The darkness in the human heart is infinite.At a time when power means everything, the ultimate power, the imperium, rests with the Consulate Magistratus. The murder of a man in the lowest caste may be inconsequential, but one man, one of the Caesteri lawmen who still believes in justice, refuses to ignore it.The woman he hunts is violent and unstable, and haunted by her own callous ghosts. She will drag him to the furthest reaches of space, where the abyss which awaits them hides an unspeakable truth. When faced with their own mortality, there is no limit to what human beings will do to protect themselves, their family, their property. The human mind changes when exposed to relentless horror. It becomes dehumanised. The grotesque becomes mundane.There is no pity, no remorse - only instinct. An instinct which cannot be controlled.The imperium belongs only to those who are strong enough to wield it.The war to control humanity's future is about to begin...Defiance is the second book in the acclaimed Beyond the Wall series, an epic hard science-fiction space opera about the future of humanity and the discovery of the truth of its past.