She never paid much heed to the land’s gods… until one took notice of her.

On the night of the closed Eye, thirteen-year-old Pae vividly imagines a creature designed to defeat a plague of mice-like scavvers. She calls it a draglin — a smaller version of her island home’s fearsome dragin predator. Her mental musings catch a passing god’s attention. It tricks her into a collaboration to bring her draglin into existence within five turns of Thune’s Eye. If she fails, it threatens to transform her into a draglin. To prove it means business, it burns one of her fingers into a draglin’s claw through fire and excruciating pain.

A suffering but determined Pae now has five chances to lay a clutch of eggs with the hopes one draglin will survive, with purpose and intent. But island superstitions run deep and dangerous, friends fall prey to unexpected violence, and tragedies bring ruin at every turn. And even new allies from the Tower, where Sisters dedicate their lives to the Mothers of the gods that walk the land, appear insufficient to help her overcome the malevolent god’s intent to complete her terrifying, agonizing, and fatal transformation…