The High King is dead. The Necrists and the Spider King wage war upon the kingdom while a mad general casts Rune’s soldiers to their deaths like stones to the sea. Desperation weighs heavily upon those few heroes who remain. Lannick and Brugan ride to rally an army of deserters. Zandrachus Bale seeks a banished Sentinel upon the dangerous steppes of Arranan. And Fencress Fallcrow watches in horror as Karnag succumbs to the demon possessing him. What faith survives in the absence of hope?