The veil between life and death has shattered. Instead of claiming the power of the Etherweave, Tressya and Tamas are cast into the Severance, a crumbling realm between life and death where tortured memories become a weapon, truth is a threat, fear becomes flesh, and the dark wears their worst thoughts like skin. Hunted by venom-born creatures and echoes of a fallen past, they soon realize the Severance is not their enemy. It is their reckoning, exposing every unspoken truth, every unhealed wound, everything secret that is silencing the bond they share. And if they cannot forge something solid and real between them then the Severance will consume them whole. Beyond the veil, the world is tearing itself apart. An ancient enemy walks the realm once more. Tarragona stands leaderless, its throne empty. The Salmun tighten their grip on Tolum, waiting for the arrival of Tarragona's bitter foe, the Levenians. And in the north, old hatreds run deeper than blood, as the clans cling to prejudice against the Huungardred, the Nazeen, and now the Razohan, refusing to unite beneath a single banner. Their allies fight to prepare, but the coming war will not wait. And the longer Tressya and Tamas remain trapped between life and death, the more inevitable it becomes: Everyone they love may fall before they ever return.