Ses Lucani has never known her parents. Powerful leaders in the cold war left over after the gods' imprisonment, Ses's mother and father are now bitter rivals, each pretending their secret daughter doesn't exist. Raised by her grandfather, Ses now lives in the hollowed-out center of the planet and learns to forge wrightings, tools imbued with soul energy and used to maintain the prison of the gods.

When terrorists attack the prison on her sixteenth birthday, Ses is forced to flee after the ensuing investigation reveals the secret of her parentage. Suddenly, the very parents who abandoned her may be the only people she can trust. Running from government operatives and fanatic cultists, Ses meets Murien, a boy with fingers in a shadowy network that can lead her to her father.

But some secrets are darker than parentage. On her way to find her father, Ses will uncover truths about her family and herself that will shatter her understanding of the world and risk the return of the gods themselves.