Before the Corruption came, truthkeep Murrin Kentle lived in a world where the largest island could be walked across in a day, and humans traded and fished in bladeships made from the bones of the gigantic sea monsters patrolling its bottomless oceans. The land was dominated by a secretive sect of scholars who fought the decay of knowledge with religious fervour, in a tense coexistence with the amphibious, matriarchal Shi'iin. There was hard-won prosperity and an uneasy peace. Now the corruption is here, and nothing in any of the worlds of the Sundered Realm will ever be the same. A Time of Ashes is a thrilling and wildly imaginative tale of existential discovery: the first part of Fate and the Wheel, a beautifully written epic tale of friendship, loss, revenge, war, and survival.