Exile is a death sentence. The undead are the executioners.

In an alternate 1970 where the Protestant Reformation unleashed necromancy upon the world, humanity survives behind fortified walls. The Holy Church rules with divine magic, uplifted hounds fight the risen dead, and the wilderness belongs to ghouls, wights, and ancient Fey.

When winter looms and famine threatens the isolated settlement of Cauldron, nine-year-old Jamal is condemned to Paupertas Silvis—cast out naked into the freezing wastes to die for contaminating the town’s grain. Refusing to let her son perish alone, Molly Sent joins his exile. But the town is stunned when Father Gregor de Jesuit, Cauldron’s high priest, renounces his holy office and sentences himself to share their doom to atone for his people’s sins.

Cast beyond the gates with no food, no steel, and no magic permitted, the trio’s survival rests in the paws of Cree—a ruthless, intelligent mastiff leading a pack of talking warhounds with secrets of his own.

As necromancer hordes gather and a harsh winter sets in, the exiles must brave the deadly frontier to reach the mystical Fey lands. But in a world crawling with monsters both living and dead, atonement is forged in blood—and survival demands a heresy all their own.

Enter a gritty, dark alternate-history fantasy where faith, dark magic, and survival collide.