Esztergom was the mountain, the fortress city that clung to its rocky sides, and the realm that fell within its shadow.

A world clinging to a past that did not exist, cracked by time and ruled by gods who feed on supplication, either through love or fear.

Ten seasons ago, the witch Sabine—the White Queen—waged war on those gods. Esztergom, allied with Tudem, rallied to the gods. Her defeat ended the fighting, but not the ache, nor the decay. Institutions calcified. The world limped forward. It did not heal. It rotted.

In Esztergom, everything extracts a price, even magic—an unnatural act imposed on the natural order. It isn’t spectacle. It’s vibration, resonance, a tuning of the self to the harmonics of the universe in defiance of the silent hand of nature. The gods hoard it, replenishing through worship, devotion, resignation. Humans are bestowed with it—an awakening, yes—but it’s a gift that takes more than it gives.

Sabine, thrice-infused, wields more than any mortal should—and it is decaying her from within. The systemic rot of Esztergom’s institutions finds its echo in her body’s unraveling. In Esztergom, to cast is to suffer. Nature will always demand its toll.

Cloaked from the world, Sabine recovered—helped by one who stands outside the natural order. Her strength returned. So did her resolve. And her fury. Her goal remains: to topple the gods and end their reign over mankind.

When Merek, the Ground Steward of Esztergom, travels to the orphanage of Malmock to recruit new woodrunners, he sets in motion a chain of events that could unravel not only Sabine’s plans but the gods themselves—and the fragile order they built atop a dying world..

What happens to a god when a god dies?

And what if the world that outlives them is worse?