This is a standalone novella of 16,500 words set before the events of Revenant Winds. Niklaus, master swordsman, has not aged a day since being chosen by his mercurial goddess. A slave to her will, he moves from one cryptic mission to the next in the hope of ascending to become her equal. But even a man who has lived for centuries can sometimes find himself out of his depth. When Niklaus is sent to kill a sorcerer of the Tainted Cabal, overconfidence leads to a fatal mistake, and neither experience nor skill with a blade can prevail against the forces unleashed against him.

In a world devastated by a series of cataclysms, where the followers of different gods vie for ascendancy, mankind carves out a precarious existence among the remnants of a desolated past. Cities and civilizations are built atop mysterious and ofttimes menacing ruins, and the unforgiving wilderness outside is filled with inhuman creatures and races from before the dawn of history. Sorcery is seen by some as a gift of the gods, and by others as their curse. And the demon-ravaged past has all but been forgotten. As a secret cabal schemes to awaken an evil thought defeated millennia ago, the lives of three unlikely heroes are fated to converge: Aldric, a veteran priest and sorcerer, who seeks acceptance from the church that shuns him. On the brink of their approval, he receives a mission that brings him face to face with a long-buried evil. Niklaus, master swordsman, and slave to his goddess, who plots to split the veil between life and death and ascend to become her equal. Kurio, the runaway daughter of a noble family, now turned to thievery, who stumbles across a disturbing secret that binds her future to infernal designs. Drawn toward a horrifying endgame by an unknown force, Aldric, Niklaus, and Kurio find themselves in a battle not only for their lives, but for the beliefs that have come to define them. A wrong decision, an overreaching ambition, or the failure of an already tormented faith, is all it will take to plunge mankind into an eternal dark.