In a world that veils the light, salvation begins with heartache.

Besieged by misfortune and dwindling time, Timber Narissara and her fractured crew make an emergency landfall in the overgrown water’s edge of Verother—where time dwindles away just like the moss that engrosses the twigs by the tide. The deadline of their most consequential assassination mission yet growing ever nearer, while they still remain on another side of the planet, engulfed by jungle, when they should be freezing together in the frozen tundras of Surtigian as they train.

But with the rising stakes, Timber and Antonio can’t take anyone, not even their furry companion.

Antonio—a man bound to her by fate and fractured trust—sails with Timber into hostile, ice-choked waters where the living envy the dead. As the cold deepens, so do old wounds. The two must confront harrowing trials, weakened bodies and minds, and their own unraveling prides. All while their spiritual guides and dimmed flames elude them. Pain will sharpen them. Loyalty will bind them. And powers neither of them fully understand will be tested to the edge of ruin.

Together, they hold the key to the liberation of billions of tormented souls, or the revolt of an age blacker than any before.

In the end, their bond will either become their greatest weapon—or the blade that breaks them.

Will they rise together as partners or be lost to the ice forever; banishing themselves and the world to an era of tortured frost?