Essun has found shelter, but not her missing daughter. Instead there is Alabaster Tenring, destroyer of the world, with a request that would seal the fate of the Stillness forever.

This is the way the world ends. Again. Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze -- the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years -- collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries. Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She'll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.

Northgard has known war for far too long, but the city’s plight has just begun. Roy Dawnseve, the prospective heir to his family’s manor, cares more for philosophy than battle. In a society that shuns literature and thrives on violence, his luck is wearing thin. But Roy is given a choice: he can join the frontlines and fight the mysterious soldiers invading Northgard’s shores—or he can search for answers to the enemy's identity within the Orphic Basilica, an ancient, abandoned library. The Basilica isn’t without its horrors, though. Strange voices echo down the halls. The scent of mildew and death lingers in the air. And Roy’s only companion is Percival Atherton, a manipulative, enigmatic scholar who has no qualms about belittling Roy. As a fierce snowstorm sinks its claws deeper into the city, Roy must grapple with the ghosts of his tormented past, an ageless conspiracy… and a war he cannot seem to escape. The first book in a dark epic fantasy series, Max Francis’s debut novel explores the mystical power of literature and the price of belief.