One thousand years beyond the fall of Earth, mankind sails a sea of Solar fire... Edric Redfast is a lieutenant aboard the oathkeeper warship Aerendra, sworn to the defence of his people and their neighbours. At the end of her last patrol of the year, Aerendra finds a wayward vessel drifting in the path of the rogue planet Mars, soon to be consumed by the raging storms that herald the war god's arrival. The doomed ship is an experiment dreamt up by Rasimus Nederwrit, a scientist from a far-off city. He and his colleagues seek to pierce the deadly storms and learn the secrets of Mars, but when the ire of the war god proves greater than their aspirations, they are forced to abandon ship. Rescued from the wrathful deity's grasp, have they cheated death, or merely delayed the inevitable? Sin and siege, storm and blood In the town of Beadogrimm's Rest preparations are underway for a festival dedicated to the ancestors. A young woman slips through the crowds unnoticed: Years after being taken as a slave, Helgis Feurkin has returned home to exact revenge and prove her loyalty to a new master. With a deal done and sealed with innocent blood, the town's fate is all but decided. Mars is coming; the town will soon be isolated by the roiling clouds of the storm, and concealed within those thrashing flames an old enemy approaches. Outnumbered, outgunned and already outwitted, Redfast and his crew must find a way to turn the tide of a lost battle, while Rasimus Nederwrit must look beyond his own survival, if his own survival is to be assured. For as the words etched into the town chapel decree: In heaven shall our deeds be judged. In fire shall man repent.