Before the Eternal Night or the Huntress, there was a deal with darkness. Isoldra Maan is drowning in debt, specifically over 250 souls deep. As a Hound for the diabolical yet irresistible Lord of Lost Souls, she’s been stuck serving the fallen god and hunting his contracts in order to be free of her own. But when Haalarcus strikes a bargain with a divine, he places her freedom finally within reach. A dark power threatens the integrity of the realm, splitting open the world and starting a series of plagues that force humanity to point fingers at the heavens. Isoldra reluctantly agrees to work with the divine—who turns out to be the self-righteous watcher Evander—in order to track down the heretic causing all this, but the simplicity of this bargain complicates when the stakes become much bigger than her freedom. An evil has awakened. A darkness unleashed. When death is not the end, how far will she go for a love crossing realms, lifetimes, and the very concept of mortality?