Lady Katira, the necromancer, is ill.
Why, no one knows; but she will not wake. They say she lost herself. They say that nothing living can go after her, because it would lose itself just as she did; and they say that nothing dead would be able to find her.
But Sahta has the protection of the dead: she was the first child born to her city since the passing of the gray bane, and she brought hope to the world – and the dead – by her very birth. She was given their protection in honor of that hope. Now she hopes it will be enough to keep her safe, as she goes to find the necromancer herself.
She will journey into a world built of the memories of the dead, taking with her only a dead dog to guide the way back home. She must find Lady Katira. And she must find the heart of a witch, who is an enemy of the dead, but who has promised to help her in exchange for this favor.
She is Sahta, first child. She started as nothing more than a hope; but in the end, she will become a hero.