The fate of humanity hangs in the balance while the Gods play. The distant future. Humanity is ruled by the godlike Dawn and her Triangulan allies. Her Golden Swarm keeps the garden world of Prithvi safe. Her nephew's Red Fleet secures the rest of the Nine Worlds. In the depths of the system, her regents-the Charioteer of Daitya, and the Huntress of Himenduh-bolster her authority with their own fleets, their own armies, and their own power. So it has been for three thousand years. But, of course, nothing lasts forever. On Daitya, a refugee family arrives from Prithvi. A mother sells her daughter into slavery. A princess seeks forbidden knowledge. Their lives could not be more different, but their stories are intertwined. They will meet in the belly of the juggernaut Sk?¯lex-a vast, living starship (vimana). They will witness the fall of kingdoms and the destruction of fleets and the toppling of the old order. They will participate first-hand in the confrontation, millennia in the making, between the Dawn and her long-estranged sister, the Night, who has traveled a million light years to right an ancient wrong. They will discover that not all is as it seems. The Triangulans are not gods. The Dawn is not just. And above all, the future-their future, humanity's future, the future of the Nine Worlds of Surya-is nothing like what they thought it would be. Welcome to the battlefield of gods and humans. Welcome to the Nine Worlds of Surya.