There were two continents beneath the same sky, separated by more than an ocean—separated by hatred, by history, by blood.

  To the left of the map, where the winds were cold and the mountains belched black smoke, lay Lijk, the land of white hair. Its people were born with the energy of Stunk pulsing through their veins, a force that could crush skulls or heal wounds, depending on whose hands held it. Children were taught before they could speak: “Stunk is our gift. And our burden.”

  To the right, beyond the Sea of ??Ash, stood Fuyu, where hair was jet black and dangers came from within. There, a ten-year-old child received a seal engraved on the back of her neck—a ritual to bind the monster that inhabited her blood. For if a Fuyunese saw red, orange, gold, his skin would twist, his bones would lengthen, and the Fuyu Effect would turn him into a creature of claws and teeth. That was why they lived in colorless cities, where even the flowers were painted black.

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  The two sides were once one.

  Four hundred years ago, before the Great Divide, before the hatred, before the first seal, before the first war. Before Ryuuuuulk, the first Pope of Lijk, declared that the dark-haired were impure. Before Fyuna Lambar, the prophetess of Fuyu, wrote her iron laws in a bloodstained book.

  Now, there were crooked histories—and borders guarded by men with heavy Stunk weapons.

  But in 1972, in a small house in the suburbs of Juil, a boy was born with Lijk’s white hair and a heart that had not yet decided whether it would be human.

  His name was Brunuyto Ryuuuuuk.

  And he would break the world in two again.