With mythical Atlantyoc sunk to the bottom of the Endless Sea, the only way for the peoples of Myr to harvest more precious tidestone is to wait for the enigmatic Five Moons to align. It's only happened 152 times since the Maelstrom, but each time it's triggered a world war, as the dying kingdoms of Myr desperately launch their fleets and armies to claim the priceless stones, without which their societies will collapse into darkness once more.

Hawthorn "Hawk" Hawkins, conscripted into the 152nd Tidestone War, lost everything fighting for the callous Lord Croft. With nothing left of his home, he escapes Croftland in a stolen tidestone airship, the Suncatcher, and flees for the pirate port of Janga Bay to start anew. But the life of a pirate and smuggler proves far harder than he'd imagined, and within a New Moon Hawk finds himself broke, haunted by regret from the family he couldn't save, and the Suncatcher's tidestone core nearly spent.

After an errant tavern brawl lands Hawk deeply indebted to a local crime lord, and squarely in the sights of the murderous waraabei pirate Rak-Tak, Hawk has no choice but to accept a cryptic contract to transport a mysterious girl to a place beyond the volcanic Crimson Mists, a journey no one has ever returned from alive. Chased by Rak-Tak's murderous crew and darker forces beyond his comprehension, and aided only by his unhelpfully bloodthirsty war golem Urthanq, Hawk finds himself drawn into a desperate struggle that could hold the fate of Myr in the balance, for there is far more to this enigmatic young girl than meets the eye...