The Continent

"Have we really come so far, when a tour of the Continent is so desirable a thing? We've traded our swords for treaties, our daggers for promises - but our thirst for violence has never been quelled. And that's the crux of it: it can't be quelled. It's human nature."

For her sixteenth birthday, Vaela Sun receives the most coveted gift in all the Spire - a trip to the Continent. It seems an unlikely destination for a holiday: a cold, desolate land where two "uncivilized" nations remain perpetually at war. Most citizens tour the Continent to see the spectacle and violence of war, a thing long banished in the Spire. For Vaela - a smart and talented apprentice cartographer - it is an opportunity to improve upon the maps she's drawn of this vast, frozen land.

But an idyllic aerial exploration is not to be had: the realities of war are made clear in a bloody battle seen from the heli-plane during the tour, leaving Vaela forever changed. When a tragic accident leaves her stranded on the Continent, she has no illusions about the true nature of the danger she faces. Starving, alone and lost in the middle of a war zone, Vaela must try to find a way home - but first, she must survive.