Where Emmeline lives, you cannot love and you cannot leave... The Council's rules are strict, but they're for the good of the settlement in which Emmeline lives. Everyone knows there is nothing but danger the other side of the Wall, and the community must prepare for the freezing winterkill that comes every year. But Emmeline struggles to be obedient under the Council's suffocating embrace - especially when she discovers that a Council leader intends to snatch her hand in marriage. Then Emmeline begins to hear the call of the trees beyond the Wall...

Council has fallen. The Thaw is here. The world outside Emmeline’s fortification awaits. Urged on by her dreams, Emmeline sets out with her new friend Matisa and her beloved Kane, venturing into exhilarating wilderness, into freedom, into the unknown. Into danger. The secret that has secured peace for Matisa’s people for generations has been compromised. Newcomers are arriving, laying claim to the land and bringing unimagined horrors. Emmeline vows to help Matisa warn her people, but with new perils at every turn and the enemy closing in, she finds herself faced with an impossible choice: Forsake the friend who saved her life or abandon the boy she loves.

This richly imagined alternate history will appeal to fans of Delirium, Wither, and The Forest of Hands and Teeth. Emmeline and Matisa have arrived at the land of Matisa’s people, but the Dominion’s troops are moving in. Matisa’s people have prepared for battle, but the Dominion’s weapons are brutal. To secure their survival, they will need something so important the Dominion will have to leave them in peace. Matisa and Em think they know what they need: the remedy to the Bleed, a deadly sickness. To find it, Em will have to go back to the stifling settlement she’d spent her whole life trying to escape. But she’s no longer the Stained girl she once was—and she’s not going down without a fight.