Twenty-year-old village healer, Eirna Eklund, has kept a damning secret from her settlement: she is cursed by Hel, Goddess of the Underworld. The shadowy spirit of Death first revealed itself to Eirna when she was nine years old, inspiring Eirna to become the village healer in hopes that her good deeds will break her curse. Despite what her heartless father says, this is her destiny, not her birthright that would one day put her on the throne as the first woman to rule Endirya.
When Death comes for her beloved grandfather and fiercest protector, the Konungr of Endirya, Eirna is left with nothing but her own guilt and the small, unmarked stone given to her during her grandfather's final moments. This loss, combined with the merciless judgement from her father and village, leads Eirna to the devastating belief that it is she who has been unleashing Death upon her people as opposed to driving it away.
Stripped of her title as the village healer and forced into an engagement with the Jarl’s brutish son, Eirna knows that she must comply with her father’s demands to avoid the threat of being sent back to the ruthless training camps in the mountains where her darkest memories live. But fate has other plans when Eirna discovers a hidden message within her grandfather’s stone, leading her to risk everything in order to change the line of succession. What Eirna believes to be her key to freedom may end up being the catalyst that sends her to realms best left for the dead. To survive, Eirna must choose whether to continue fighting her curse, or become one with it.
