Rune Draden returns from war to find his rank stripped and his purpose hollow. Sent west beyond the reach of kings, he walks into a land unraveling—where shrines bleed, old gods blink awake, and a girl who should be dead is waiting. As Rune steps deeper into cursed soil and forgotten names, one truth becomes what rots beneath the earth doesn’t always stay buried. The blade he carries was never forged—and it remembers what the kingdom would rather forget.