When a shattered god-stone leaves fragments of its power scattered across a world divided by caste and color, a mixed-blood outcast nobody was ever supposed to notice becomes the one person who can wield it — and every faction in the city of Lineage, mortal and divine, will tear each other apart to take it from him.
In the shattered world of Prism, the gods' failed masterpiece — the Onestone — broke the world into castes defined by the color of their skin: white-skinned Elite rulers, yellow Functionaries, green Botanists, blue Mariners, black-and-red Blooddread warriors, and the despised, multi-colored Calico, born of forbidden unions between the castes and belonging to none of them.
Hue is Calico, fifteen, and has spent his life being told what he is not: not worth teaching, not worth claiming, not worth Essence. But his aging mentor, Gaunt Wheeling, has been teaching him to see the invisible currents of magic anyway — and when danger forces Hue from his home, he's sent into the wider world to find a stranger's son and a fragment of the Onestone he carries, before it falls into the wrong hands.
What Hue finds instead is a half-brother he never knew, a princess running from her own throne, a conspiracy reaching into the halls of a god, and a truth about himself that the world was never built to allow. In a city of guilds, prophecy, and blood debts, the fragment chooses its bearer — and it has chosen Hue.
Once a single, perfect world envisioned by the goddess Etheria, Prism was shattered when her creation — the Onestone — was corrupted and destroyed. Its people, the Onerace, were irradiated by the scattering Essence of nine gods and reborn as distinct, color-coded castes. Three centuries later, that fracture still governs everything: who rules, who serves, and who is Calico — belonging to no caste at all.
Eight castes, one god apiece, one color each — and the Calico, who belong to none. Meet the Elite, the Blooddread, the Botanists, and the rest of Prism's fractured peoples.
Read the caste breakdown →The gods who shattered a world still shape it from a distance. Essence is their power, their currency, and the reason Prism's people can never simply be equal.
Learn the magic system →A colossal three-tiered city rising from a forested gorge: the Mainstay's white spire above, a walled guild tier at its feet, and a sprawling outer city below, where most of Prism actually lives.
Tour the city →Seven fragments of the shattered Onestone, each carrying the Essence of a god, scattered across Prism since the Corruption — and fought over ever since.
See the fragments →Calico · Fifteen years old
Raised in the hidden Calico settlement of Ethni, Hue has spent his life being told he is worth nothing — until his mentor's forbidden gift and a fragment of a broken god-stone say otherwise.
Wandering Calico mentor
An aging traveler with the Nomadii, teaching Hue to see currents of Essence no Calico should ever touch. He knows far more about the Onestone than he ever lets on.
Elite princess of Lineage
Heir to the Overlord's throne, and carrying secrets of her own, Solareana is drawn into Hue's path by a case she can't leave alone — and a father she's desperate to save.
Botanist, newly raised adept
Son of the Botanist guildmaster, Azaleus comes into a terrifying, uncontrollable power right as a fragment of the Onestone finds its way into his hands.