"I've heard the city makes men free, but only after a year and a day." The great cities of the North have stood for a thousand years, beacons of enlightenment and culture. The countryside may burn, may shift and move like a nest of serpents, but the cities stay true. They say something loved by a million souls can never die. A mix of fantasy and historical research in the medieval period, this story focuses on Yng, a woman trying to find her place in the world amid the violence of the present and the trauma in her past. Along the way, she'll advise kings, reveal secrets, fight a war, get married, and walk to the end of the earth. But first she needs to get out of prison.