This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The imperial thearchy of Centheosia teeters on collapse, crippled by a century of ecological disaster, colonial revolts and infighting among its divine kings and queens, who were once unified under a loose alliance of state cults. A schismatic uprising by a cult of god-slaying heretics called the Cenotaph shatters what remains of the old order, in the name of liberating humanity from tyrannical divinities. After seven years of holy insurrection and assassinations whose targets are the very gods themselves, a Centheosian High Priestess named Nacta presents an offer to the Cenotaph: Her defection and guaranteed safety, in exchange for the relic of a slain goddess that was long believed lost when the Cenotaphic assassins perished alongside their target. The covenant is cut, and Nacta recruits six unlikely pilgrims to escort her to the site of the relic's repose: Oxyria and Wyrethia, two zealous Cenotaphic Novitiates; Docent Aris, a heretical Magister, and her reticent Acolyte Blume; Vireo tal Raz, a charming Barbarian; and Venerable Sir Creosote the Dismantler, a silent Living Saint said to have slain a god by himself – though Nacta denies such an accusation on his behalf. With a communion more broken than their bread, these pilgrims set off for a mission stained red by deicide.