For centuries, the kingdom of Vorrengarde has thrived, its people kept safe by the blessings of the Veilwardens, an ancient order of healers, scholars, and alchemists who have long studied the balance of life and death. Adelaide belonged to the order, and prided herself in being a physician trained not only in the science of healing but also in the delicate art of warding off unnatural illnesses. But something has broken in the realm. A sickness unlike any before has begun to spread. A sickness that does not respond to medicine, does not obey the natural laws of disease. It festers in the body long after death, twists flesh into mockeries of life, and whispers hunger into the minds of the afflicted. Adelaide saw the truth the moment her patients began to rise. She saw it in the way their veins blackened before their hearts stopped, in the way the sickness crawled beneath their skin as though searching for something. This was not an affliction. It was an invasion, a possession. She should have died that night. When the first risen patient tore into her flesh, she should have succumbed. But she didn’t. Instead of killing her, the plague changed her. It recognized her. She did not become a mindless husk. She did not rot. Instead, she became something in between, a being neither entirely mortal nor entirely cursed. She is Vorrith’s chosen, but she refuses to be its servant.