Raised behind sacred walls, far from the burning cities and bone-strewn fields, Niah has lived a life of quiet devotion, untouched by the holy war waged by the King of the High North and his Reapers. But when her monastery is attacked and she is taken prisoner, everything she has ever known begins to unravel.

Dragged to a brutal war college hidden deep in the mountains, Niah finds herself at the mercy of Commander Winterson, the Reapers' most feared leader. Cold-eyed, cunning, and impossibly powerful, he is everything she was raised to hate.

As her forbidden powers begin to awaken and the line between duty and desire blurs, Niah must survive a world built on lies or be consumed by its darkness.