The world is changing. In the bleak northern city of Zoelon, they burn witches on Wintertide's Eve amongst the smoke and squalor of the factories. And in the east, a dark power is stirring and growing stronger. Times are dangerous for one such as Alix Reste, for Alix sees the future and he carries within him a destructive power that is beyond anything he can understand or control. Pursued through the smog dark city by a strange admirer and haunted by his own nightmares and visions, Alix begins to realise that he is a pawn in a much larger game. But Alix has secrets of his own, and he is not always what he seems. As Wintertide's Eve draws relentlessly closer, the skies rain poison, and Alix must decide where to pledge his allegiance and his own strange powers.