The hundred-thousand-man army of CRUCIAN IMPERATOR BASIL THE BREAKER besieges Holy Zelthuriya, the final bastion of the Latian faith, to fulfill the Ethosian prophecy of the Opener, who will conquer the whole east for the Faith. As they build the trench works, Imperator Basil is especially proud of the hard work his son and heir DORAN is doing to further the cause. Unfortunately for them, a blood cloud appears and immerses Basil, Doran, and the entire army. They vanish within its folds, sparing the Latians and ending Crucian domination of Alanya for the foreseeable future.
Six hundred years later, as Cyra and her Sylgiz-Jotrid Alliance struggle to manage Qandbajar, Kevah and Kyars plot her downfall within the safety of Holy Zelthuriya — with the hope of restoring the Path of the Saints to Qandbajar and ending the Sylgiz-Jotrid threat. Kevah also spends time with Sadie, who has fallen into despair after witnessing Lat being crushed by Hawwa’s hand, yet who still wants to help. To bolster his own position, Kyars attempts to mend relations with his cousins, who were aggrieved by his execution of their father, Mansur. But his attempts fail when the eldest of them, HURRAN, undermines all his arguments by pointing out that he and his siblings have the larger army.
Meanwhile, Cyra is busy meeting Celene, Gokberk, Wafiq, Pashang, and other important notables at her fractious court. She hatches a scheme to draw Kyars’ gholam out of Zelthuriya and into an open battle by attacking the yearly festival of the Abyad tribes. At the same time, Kevah flies to Kostany with Ruhi, who despises Cyra, to convince Shah Murad to ally with Kyars. He succeeds, and Grand Vizier Ebra gifts him with an impenetrable suit of gunmetal armor molded from the remnants of the Archangel — after it appeared over Kostany and exploded — as well as an all-destroying sword, which Kevah names Black Rose.
Cyra launches her attack on the Abyads outside Holy Zelthuriya just as Kevah and Ruhi return. Kevah intervenes, resisting every attack thanks to his impenetrable black armor and cleaving enemy after enemy with Black Rose. In desperation, Cyra prays to Hawwa for victory.
Hawwa summons the blood cloud containing Imperator Basil and his hundred-thousand-man army into Holy Zelthuriya. The Crucians slay or capture everyone in the city, except for Shah Kyars, Kato, ABUNAISAROS, and other Kyars loyalists, who manage to barricade themselves in the Shrine of Chisti.
But the blood cloud itself remains over the holy city. Within the cloud are eldritch monsters, the sight of which drive many of Basil’s men to madness or to gouge their own eyes. Worse, these monsters will not allow Basil and his army to permanently leave. And even if they could leave, Cyra and her army remain camped outside of the city. Worst of all, Basil’s son Doran is missing.
Basil enters into an agreement with Cyra: in exchange for the heads of Kyars and Kato, Cyra will permit Basil and his army to depart. But the monsters in the cloud prove to be a far greater problem. Even worse than the monsters is a scheming jinn named SAURVA, who claims to be Basil’s half human, half-dev daughter. Saurva gives Basil The Melody of Micah and compels him to revive Micah the Metal, enter the Shrine of Chisti, and locate the Gate. Basil, wary of becoming a tool to a scheming dev, refuses.
Saurva gives The Melody of Aschere to Cyra and asks her to bring back Aschere, who she claims will teach Cyra how to use her starwriting powers. And she’ll need them because Kevah is coming for her. With the help of his impenetrable angel armor and sword, Kevah hunts down as many Sylgiz and Jotrid riders as he can on his way to Holy Zelthuriya, where he intends to rescue Kyars and locate Sadie, who has been missing since the arrival of Basil.
Just in time, Saurva gifts Basil an angel tear dagger, which is the only material that can break through Kevah’s angel armor. Basil confronts Kevah, and wary of having yet another enemy, he permits Kevah to enter the Shrine of Chisti so Kevah can speak with Kyars and learn Sadie’s whereabouts.
Kevah resolves to bring an army to free Kyars. Upon leaving the shrine, he is attacked by a Fallen Angel. One touch of the Fallen Angel causes Kevah to see strange visions. Kinn manages to save him by taking him to the Valley of Fire, where resides the Efreet tribe of jinn. Their sultan Eblas pledges to aid Kevah and provides him with a fire jinn named ZABAN. Kevah then travels to Dorud to speak with GRAND VIZIER BARKAM. Before the meeting, he orders his fire jinn to kill Pashang and Cyra’s mother, but only if no Abyads are harmed in the process.
Meanwhile, Cyra captures Sadie, who had been trying to help the Abyads. At first, she tries to speak with her to understand Sadie and Kevah’s defiance but concludes that they’ll never see eye to eye. Zaban burns Cyra’s mother to death but fails to kill Pashang. As Cyra’s mother lays dying, she makes a final prayer for Cyra’s ascension.
In Dorud, Kevah meets with Barkam and CROWN PRINCE FARIS, who prove to be unhelpful, so Kevah travels to Merva to meet with Mansur’s children, who had earlier rebuked Kyars. It is there that he encounters the army of SHAH BABUR OF KASHAN, who have come to take Merva for themselves. Using the powers of his fire jinn to put on a spectacle, Kevah strongarms Shah Babur into marching to Holy Zelthuriya to defeat Cyra and the Sylgiz-Jotrid Alliance.
Meanwhile in Zelthuriya, Basil makes a temporary peace with Kyars and both attempt to escape through the hidden northern passage. A Fallen Angel bars their path, making escape impossible. Basil sees his son Doran, who has been turned to stone yet can still talk. Doran warns his father that the Fallen Angels will not allow him to leave.
Now more desperate than ever, Basil implores Cyra to ask Kevah to help them escape the blood cloud, since Kevah possesses a sword that can destroy all materials. He sends his strategist MARKOS outside the blood cloud with the tear dagger, which he gifts to Cyra as a sign of good will, along with a note to Cyra telling her to forbid Markos from ever returning, in the hope that it may save him from the blood cloud. But Markos’ gaze lingers too long on a Fallen Angel, and he is forced to pluck out his own eyes – though he still manages to deliver the letter and the dagger to Cyra.
Cyra is in no mood to help Basil nor communicate with Kevah. Incensed and in mourning at the loss of her mother, she tortures Sadie by forcing her to stare at the Fallen Angels in the blood cloud, until Sadie agrees to touch the bloodrune within the Melody of Aschere. When she does so, her eyes turn green and the dead sorceress Aschere (also known as Lunara) takes over her body.
Kevah attacks the Sylgiz-Jotrid Alliance with fire magic but is stabbed in the back with a tear dagger by Pashang, though he does manage to learn about the revival of Aschere in Sadie’s body. Kinn flies him back to Merva, where he is saved from near death by Eshe and his bloodwriting powers. Kevah also reunites with Aicard, who tells him about the Sargosan presence in the East Islands, a chain of islands south of Kashan that are rich with spices and other goods. It seems the Sargosans — who are technically a client kingdom of Crucis but who now appear to be stronger than Crucis itself — have allied with a faction from Talitos, the undiscovered land beyond the sea mists, to oppose an alliance between Kashan and the mighty Empire of Silk. The two sides are now competing for suzerainty over these islands.
Aicard also tells Kevah about his mysterious past. He relates to him memories of living on an island covered with pyramids and surrounded by strange, godlike beings. The people living on the island would be forced to climb these pyramids and would be sacrificed to these beings once they reached the top. However, after Aicard was sacrificed, he didn’t die — instead, his soul transmigrated into another body, his current one. Aicard still does not understand his past life, but he believes the people from Talitos might, and so he goes off to the East Islands to investigate what is going on there.
In Zelthuriya, Basil and his men are contending with even greater perils. The blood cloud is making them sick, increasing the pressure of the blood in their bodies — especially behind their eyes. This is causing many men to go blind or even die. And that’s not even the worst thing: blood tulips are growing out of the skin of many men, a sign of impending death. Basil watches his right-hand man, TOMAS, die from this flower sickness. And then Doran, his son, returns to his side, though he is vomiting blood. Saurva tells Basil he must take Doran into the Shrine of Chisti, and then she will end the blood cloud’s presence over Zelthuriya. Basil reluctantly agrees, and Saurva inspires Eshe with the discovery of how to lift the blood cloud.
Lunara, now inhabiting Sadie’s body, decides to address some unfinished business since her death. She takes Cyra through Labyrinthos and out into the Sirmian city of Tagkalay, which is under the control of a rebel janissary sultan named ARSALAN. Along with his sister NADIA, the four of them make common cause against the Seluqals. Arsalan even gifts Cyra more tear blades, claiming that the Sirmians have produced many angel metal armor and swords and affirming that only the Tear of the Archangel can cut through them.
Nadia also talks about the Elder Epoch, a time when angels and jinn dwelled upon the egg that is threatening to hatch and end the world. Cyra and Lunara then return to face the forces of Shah Babur.
But Shah Babur is about to spring several surprises. First, he crowns Hurran as the Shah of Alanya, undermining Kyars, which greatly angers Kevah. Instead of submitting to the decision, Kevah decides to break away from Shah Babur and save Kyars himself. With the help of his magi, HAYTHAM and SINA – who command the jinn tribes of lightning and water – Babur also conquers Qandbajar, setting Cyra back immensely.
Basil takes Doran inside the Shrine of Chisti. Doran attacks a healer and uses bloodwriting to phase through a wall, taking Basil with him. The two enter a hidden area of the shrine and then descend below it, into its darkest chamber. There they find a door that cannot be opened until Doran literally fuses with it, sacrificing his own life. With his dying breaths, he tells Basil that he is indeed the prophesied Opener.
In that room, Basil meets a strange man who claims he’s been trapped there for one thousand years. This man is THE GATE, and he is also revealed to be both Saint Chisti and the Ethosian angel CESSIEL. He traps Basil in the room and escapes.
The army of Shah Babur and the Sylgiz-Jotrid horde prepare to clash outside the blood cloud that covers Holy Zelthuriya. Pashang is injured trying to drive some of Babur’s allies away from an important choke point. As Pashang lays dying, Eshe appears and offers to save him in exchange for the life of Nora’s infant son, whose God’s Blood he needs to remove the blood cloud covering Zelthuriya. Cyra agrees despite Nora’s desperate pleas. Eshe then sacrifices Nora’s son and the blood cloud is finally lifted. But something worse has replaced it: a giant angel with a spiderlike body named MALAK. The angel now stands over Zelthuriya, though only those whose sight can pierce the veil can see it.
Kevah forces his way into Zelthuriya to rescue Kyars but is wounded by a tear dagger to the back. Along the way, he reunites with Eshe, and the two fight together against Basil’s forces to reach the shrine. They are eventually captured, though Kevah manages to make a deal with HERAKON, who is now in command after Basil went missing in the shrine. In exchange for his freedom, Kevah will convince Shah Babur to release the Crucians and allow them free passage to whatever land they wish. With this deal made, Herakon allows Kevah to go free.
Shah Babur’s army attacks Cyra’s camp, apparently routing her forces. But Cyra discovers the power of her mother’s prayer for ascension: she now has Chisti’s Blood in her veins instead of Conqueror’s Blood, which means she is the Children. Bolstered by this miraculous discovery and full of zeal, she sends thousands of warriors through Labyrinthos to hit Babur from behind. This trick works, and Babur’s forces are obliterated.
Cyra briefly meets Kevah, and the two agree to make peace and not attack each other so long as Cyra allows Shah Kyars to go free and Kevah leaves Lunara alone. Cyra then marches into Zelthuriya, where she reluctantly allows Shah Kyars to abdicate and go into exile in Sirm. She also permits Herakon and his ancient Crucian legions to depart for the Deep Waste.
Frustrated by Cyra’s triumph, Kevah leaves Holy Zelthuriya and heads for Dorud. He overthrows Shah Faris, relegating him to a mere figurehead, and proclaims himself Sultan. He coerces Grand Vizier Barkam to submit, though it is Kato who proves more difficult to convince.
In Zelthuriya, Lunara and Eshe search for Basil’s whereabouts but cannot figure out how to enter the hidden chamber beneath the Shrine of Chisti. Lunara finds The Melody of Micah and a note falls out of it, stating that “Micah knows where your son is.” Lunara cannot believe that the note is meant for her, since she believes her son is dead. She and Eshe briefly encounter the Gate, who threatens her, saying that “he will get the Gate Opening Spell” from her one way or another.
As Lunara falls asleep that night, she hears Basil screaming in despair from the deep, distant darkness beneath the shrine.