In a world where tall ships have led to expansive conquests, people are saying a masked man is leading a resistance against the imperial occupiers. Able Houser, a scholar struggling with a stalled career, is both skeptical of the stories yet hopeful that they could be hiding the trail of the insurgents his father was helping when he vanished twelve years ago. After turning up hints of a government cover-up, Able sails across the sea to investigate further and becomes entangled not only in the conflict between the imperial enforcers and the native people but also in a long-standing conspiracy.

In a politically volatile kingdom, Noah is tasked with finding the catalyst, a magical artifact rumored to greatly enhance the potential of the wielder. Joining his efforts are his childhood best friend and an illegitimate prince doing the queen's bidding in exchange for his lover's freedom. It soon becomes clear that many different parties are after the catalyst, though no one seems to know who started this chase or why. In order to survive and save the people he cares about, Noah will have to leave behind everything he thought he knew about magic and adapt to a new reality of unlikely alliances and painful betrayals, high-stakes power struggles, and vengeful entities.

There is no night in the Everburning City. There can never be. ***** For four hundred years the Everburning City has withstood the advance of the life-strangling fog known as the Gloam. Its walls have held back five invasions, but on the eve of the sixth, the city's inhabitants know things have changed. Golems are coming out of the mist, and the bodies of the dead are rising at the Gloam's bidding. The city's last and most desperate line of defence comes in the form of the Crafters, individuals who can channel the power of fire, though they risk their sanity each time they do. The brightest of these valiant heroes are Tabitha a'Loria and her apprentice Gerald Reath. Risking their lives, they mount their airships, determined to save the last bastion of humanity - the Everburning City. [[word count: 100,000-150,000 words]]