When Camilla, a young North African girl, travels with her mother and father from Leptis Magna to Rome in 207 AD, she believes that she is going to the centre of the world. But just a few months later, the little family is dispatched to the very edge of it: Britannica.

Tragedy strikes and left alone with the Empress while her father travels north, Camilla must navigate the tricky world of secrets and danger in this cold place she must now call home.