The Veil between the living and the dead has been shattered, leading to a war between direlings and humans. At the center of it all stands Valhera, the Undying, a direling who has been called both the redemption and damnation of her people. She has slaughtered warlords, cleansed cities, and stolen the Divine from Elthysia. She has stood alone against armies like the Undying of old, but she has lost her living hope. Horribly wounded, she retreats from the site of her most recent battle, and is found by a young couple who wishes to know the truth of her story—whether their faith is misplaced, if placed in her. Valhera, in her recovery, says that it is. She says that she is responsible for the war, for everything foul and crooked. She is weighed down by her regrets and her failures, and only righteous vengeance is left to fuel her fire. In telling her tale, she outlines the things that led her on her bloody path, and the ways that all is not as it seems.

She had humble beginnings, being a goatherd. However, her horns and tail mark her as a direling, and an outcast in her human community. One day, a necromage from the famous Order of Eventide arrives to cleanse her small town of undead, and he notices a dark power slumbering within her. He offers her a chance to escape her life on the farm, to follow him into the direling homeland of Nephodel, where the past has stained the earth and wind themselves, where memories and regret are like their own forces of nature. In Nephodel, undead—the past given body, and form—run rampant, and warlords fight over every inch of arable land. Here, searching for the heart of her people's dead god, Valhera will discover horrible truths—the secret circumstances of her birth, and the fact that the gods' power is fading. That the fate of the world may depend on how she harnesses her dark gifts, and what allies she chooses to keep.