The Winged Serpent: 5

The gods are dying. And for the first time, they are glad.For a thousand years, the five who carry the world's burden have been more than human - pillars of the elements, anchors against the dark. But the power is fading now, leaching out of them like color from a grey leaf. Their hands callus. Their joints ache. They are, impossibly, becoming mortal - and they do not know whether it is a punishment or a mercy.When a new corruption rises in the jungle temples of the Maya - a Heretic who feeds on the people's awe and turns their faith into rot - Tu, Jin, Mu, Bai, and Shui must defend a world that no longer needs gods, with bodies that are running out of time. And when the same darkness surfaces again a sea away, in the marble heart of a rising Rome, they learn the most frightening truth of all: the cycle they thought they had broken is repeating, civilization by civilization, and the enemy wears a new face each time.To stop the Void, the five must finish becoming what they once feared most - finite, fragile, and human. Because a winged serpent does not rule the sky by being eternal. It rules by being alive.The Awakenings saga's most ambitious volume yet - a sweeping, elegiac epic about the burden of perfection, the grace of decay, and what heroes become after the magic is gone.Book Five of the Awakenings saga.