The Grand Caliph is assassinated. Jade is fingered, but maintains her innocence. The Order of the Ring seizes control of all guilds as part of their crackdown to keep order.
Nyx and Tristan spearhead an effort to free the imprisoned guild members, sending the younger ones away (to places like Avila) and uniting the guilds in opposition to the Order's unjust rule.
Leda and Sindarion uncover a dark secret within the ranks of the Circle of Nine--an ancient conspiracy that runs through the length of the order's history.
Jade tracks the conspiracy that has made a patsy of her, only to find she is indeed the assassin, and has been assassinating all this time without remembering any of it.
The party confronts the Phantom, but finds he is only a cat's paw; the real villain is Myleine, who is in fact the Undying Queen.
Nyx seeks the aid of all the party's allies--the Ahrimin, the Valtans, the Undine, even the Blue Dragonflight, in preparation for the ouster of the unstoppably powerful queen.
With the help of chronomancy, he realizes that Delilah's fall from grace was orchestrated by Myleine, and transits to an alternate time stream to retrieve her. He and the elder wizards conspire to show that the Four Elements have resurrected Delilah as their chosen avatar.
And so they confront the Undying Queen. Delilah, empowered by the might of the Order of the Ring, the Blue Dragonflight, ready to even an ancient score, and the party, backed up by an army of "minor" guilds representing thousands of BP of pure ass-kicking.
A big crazy-ass fight ensues. The Queen is kicked out.
Aftermath:
Delilah, speaking for the Order of the Ring, announces that the guilds shall evermore be free
A new government is instituted; modeled after the Kingdom of the Sword, it sits the (absent) King of the Sword as the Head of State, with the Court of the Oath (represented by humans and dragons, for now) advising (and holding all real power)
The existing civic authorities are elevated to form a semi-democratic government of Saillonne; the question of who truly rules the Ahrimid lands remains open
The Ahrimin, furious at the presence of dragons in their lands, begin to foment the seeds of jihad