A captain, exiled for disobeying orders in the heat of a battle against dragons A shaman, desperate to keep her clan of sailors out of servitude An archmage who has foreseen the destruction of all worlds The elvar, with their long lifespans and rigid traditions, condemned Cat Greentrees for fleeing an unwinnable battle to bring news of a new threat. Cat plans to wait out his exile by drinking himself into a stupor, but the words of prophecy dog his heels. When one of the powerful and revered archmages—a short-lived halvar named Armand Bluestaves—receives a similar prophecy, Cat will need to decide whether to throw away what’s left of his reputation to wage a reckless campaign into the void. In the void, there are no currents to propel ships. There is only hungry darkness and the ghosts of destroyed worlds. If they want to save all free var of the Spheres, they’ll need to leave everything they know behind. But first, they need a ship...and a crew.

A ship unlike any other, forged to travel beyond the spheres A journey into darkness, among spheres long since dead A weapon that should never have lived—and once forged, cannot die… When he heeded the call of a powerful archmage and hired the only crew desperate enough to follow him into the void, disgraced elvar captain Cat Greentrees didn’t realize that it would turn his worldview on its head. Widely reviled and viewed as criminals, his new crew of gobvar—an entire small clan led by a young shaman—quickly proved itself the equal to any crew Cat led in the navy. Now, to evade a prophecy that could threaten all of the var, Cat and his archmage had stolen a strange ship that has allowed them to enter the ruined spheres of a long-dead empire, spheres whose lack of air, aether, or life stabs into Cat’s very soul. The ruins around them hold the supplies and perhaps the answers they need to complete their journey, but these broken worlds are far from safe. Because once, the Blood King of the Gobvar ruled these halls. The old stones themselves share a mind... a mind still loyal to a King that should be dead.