To change the fates design, Sybil Wyntres—once a child without magic—watches her friend be mutilated in a ritual meant to grant her the power she lacked. Now, serving as a Warden for the Portcullis, she vows to make her life mean something. Until a jagged shard of her past resurfaces, shining light on the corruption that runs far deeper than the monsters below the Nether Peaks.

Far beneath the surface, an enslaved Etched named Raekin serves the Void Born who carved obedience into his bones. Bound by runes he cannot break and commanded by a master he cannot defy, Raekin becomes a weapon sent against the very world that abandoned him. But whispers of a way to break his chains circulate, carried by the hand of an ancient enchanter, he vows to free the Etched from their binds.

When their paths cross, truth and vengeance collide and the fate of the continent shifts with them.