The Lance of Veronna

Cragg Rawley sealed Abbee Danner in the basements of the ruined Tower of Akken and left her to rot. No food. No water. No way out. Just a marble head that won't stop talking, and a dark that was old before the Tower stood. He should have finished the job.Abbee has climbed out of deeper graves than this one. The deadliest healer on the continent, with a gift that runs backward and a reputation that clears rooms, she's survived everything the world has thought to do to her. But the Tower wasn't built on empty rock. Something waits beneath the basements, deeper than any mine, older than the wizards who believed they were its masters. It's been listening a very long time. And it knows what she is.Far to the south, Asha Togrim is awake. She built half the old world and burned a good share of the rest, and the stories missed the worst of it. She has had thousands of years to think, and exactly one piece of unfinished business left. She will take the continent apart to settle it.Vani Brattle tore down the Tower and killed the horror in its cellar, and what she got for her trouble was a body that is no longer entirely her own. Now Steya Danan, the deposed Lady of Veronna's most powerful House, has turned up alive against every reasonable hope. The link between them is waking again. It remembers everything, including the things Vani can't forgive herself for.All of it converges on Veronna, a city built over a supervolcano, where an ancient weapon called the Lance is coming apart behind a failing shield. At the base of the shield stands a girl. Small and barefoot, older than kingdoms, drinking it dry one thread at a time. When the last thread goes, she becomes something no one has a name for, and the mountain wakes with her. The people racing toward that chamber have toppled towers and outlived empires. Not one of them is ready for what's underneath.Content note: this book contains explicit sexual content, violence, and an on-page depiction of suicidal ideation. A full content warning appears in the front matter.