What would you do for the future of your soul?   Like any other person in the community of Tre-erde, Janae believes each tree in the Tre-wood Forest grows from the soul of a buried ancestor, from a deceased friend, or a relative. Like any person in Tre-erde, she believes she belongs in the community, despite them shunning her for the nature of her estranged father.   But unlike others in Tre-erde, she can't believe what the Prime, the wisest person in all the communities, is telling them: the mythical dragon from childhood stories will finally arrive and eat the trees in the Tre-wood. It will then carry their souls in its belly across the sea to the other world, that promised better world.   When the mother and father of her friend Daneel take their own lives, it signals what might be a trending kind of travesty that will happen in anticipation of the dragon's arrival. Not accepting this fate for Tre-erde, Janae and Daneel travel to Kahlil, the community near the sea, to find proof that the dragon is not real and is merely part of a story.   In their journey, they discover half-truths that shaped Tre-erde's past, and unprecedented changes in the world around them. All this while gathering knowledge of a near future event that threatens, not just the lives of all those in Tre-erde, but the nature of what it means to have a buried soul.