In the Time Before, when the Blessed Heights didn’t exist, peace reigned.Now, its royals demand those below in the Dregspledge total subservience, or pay in blood.In cold shadows, some shiver.Some flee to sunlight.And some plot in secret to rise up.*Atop the Kabellak Mountain, in The Blessed Heights, Tayari Thorne trains to become a Favored One, a title of distinction bearing no freedom. A man would choose her, keep her, provide for her—until he tired of her. Home was one privilege she would not know.Below in The Dregs, in the shadow of the mountain, Amina Emezi readies for the day when she can escape her parents’ home, and escape the Dregs, dependent on no one else. Home would be the place of her choosing.Neither realizes the fragility of her existence.Neither could guess how their lives would intersect, and change course unalterably on the same day.