Simon Holiday doesn't want to be a spy, but there are worse things than a guilty conscience. What's selling your soul to one beast if it staves off another?

His work has found him at the center of a new world, translating temple texts alongside the mysterious and outgoing Gen; a man whose body, and mysteries, Simon can't turn his mind from. Even if that attraction threatens everything he's there for.

Gen is too busy running from his fate to fall in love, but it's happening anyway. A former acolyte of his temple's hidden power, he's desperate to become anyone else, even if he knows it's impossible. When Simon is invited into the temple's most sacred ceremony, Gen decides this is his chance to find balance between who he needs to be and who he wants to be with.

Until the warmonger Jorel rises to power, taking the core of the temple for himself: Haliz Fundir, a tree with the ability to meld bodies and minds into one. A boon in the right hands, and a terrifying weapon in his, Jorel just needs one final secret to control its dark power. A secret only Gen holds.

A secret Gen uses, melding with Simon to slip through Jorel's grasp.

Now melded into one body and mind, Simon and Gen are forced to face the truths of their pasts and the gravity of their present. With Jorel's extremist followers, a deranged scientist, and a pack of deformed monsters hunting them down, they're running out of options, allies, and time as the horror of Haliz Fundir awakens once again.