Step into a world of forbidden magic, talking animals, and monsters where a city is teetering on the brink of chaos at the turn of a new age. This diverse cast features an elderly man, a girl made of the night sky, a woman raising orphan spies, and a main character who is bipolar with PTSD.
Obsessed with returning his life-mate home, Nokhum violates the conditions of his pardon to meet with a Human who works with the leader of the slavers. This Human was supposed to have answers about what the Humans are doing with his people that they have stolen, but things don't go as planned.
What's worse, one of Nokhum's coworkers, Xiilena, has proof that the Council of Elders has members who are working with the Human slavers, meaning they aren't likely to agree with Nokhum to send a party to rescue the stolen. His only choice is to seek the forbidden magics to find his life-mate.
Nokhum's plans are derailed by his mentors' schemes. For fifteen hundred years, Slate and the other rebels have trained students to return Fire's energy to the city of Wen. Fire is forbidden, and the fire stewards have been banished or killed during the civil war. If the Age of Fire returns to a city without fire stewards, chaos will reign with no one to control the dangerous element.
Every student the rebels have trained has failed to convince the Council to return to the Old Ways. Only one is left, and Nokhum's past is less than ideal. The leader of the rebels is convinced Nokhum will not succeed either. But she has a plan.
Chaos' monsters can only be controlled with fire magic, and the leader of the rebels knows how to summon them. If she sacrifices her student to the monsters of Chaos, she can convince the people to rise up and demand the return of fire before the new age in a few days.
But Slate thinks this is monstrous. Sacrificing Nokhum would also hinder Slate's work as the leader of the Peace Keepers, and with the new year comes the prince of the Underlings who will inherit their city's debt upon his father's passing. Nokhum poses as a scribe for the Peace Keepers when his biggest value has been espionage.
Nokhum seems to understand the prince in ways the other Peace Keepers don't. If peace cannot be kept through diplomacy, Slate relies on Nokhum to take care of the problem before it sends the city into chaos. He can't give up his student to the rebels' plans.
Nokhum's partner presents an option. Getting Nokhum out of the city might keep him out of trouble. Can Nokhum survive the rebels' plans?
