Three months have passed since Revance was destroyed in a devastating mutiny. Ryza and the surviving conscripts work tirelessly to clear vast pools of molten flux from the walking fortress' wreckage, draining it into the sands and trying not to think about where it's ending up.

But the situation is getting desperate. Supplies are dwindling. Conscripts are deserting in droves to join the looters. Worst of all, the flux is behaving in ways that Ryza's sure it shouldn't.

The resurrected autominds of the battle's dead won't stop staring at him, familiar faces have been appearing in the surface of the molten flux itself, and it still hasn't shown a hint of turning to blazing flux, the volatile gas that should occur when concentrated in more than a bucketful.

When Ryza discovers what's truly controlling molten flux, he realises nothing's as it's meant to be.

Including himself.