From a land without war to a continent of two warring nations… one girl’s crash landing becomes a fight to survive.

For her sixteenth birthday, Vaela Sun receives the most coveted gift in all the Spire — a trip to the Continent. It seems an unlikely destination for a holiday: a cold, desolate land where two “uncivilised” nations remain perpetually locked in combat. Most citizens lucky enough to tour the Continent do so to observe the spectacle and violence of war, a thing long banished in the Spire. For Vaela—a talented apprentice cartographer — the journey is a dream come true: a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to improve upon the maps she’s drawn of this vast, frozen land.

But Vaela’s dream all too quickly turns to a nightmare as the journey brings her face-to-face with the brutal reality of a war she’s only read about. Observing from the safety of a heli-plane, Vaela is forever changed by the bloody battle waging far beneath her. And when a tragic accident leaves her stranded on the Continent, Vaela finds herself much closer to danger than she’d ever imagined. Starving, alone and lost in the middle of a war zone, Vaela must try to find a way home — but first, she must survive.