She was eight when the light took him.

On the Mongolian steppe, Tuya watched her uncle Bold vanish in a blinding flash across the sky. No one believed her. Not the authorities. Not her father, who drowned his grief in silence and vodka and let what remained of their family crumble.

Eighteen years later, Tuya is still searching ? for Bold, for answers, and for a way to forgive the people who stopped looking.

When a trail of impossible clues leads her off Earth entirely, Tuya finds herself stranded on the Colony ? a world where three alien civilizations have built their empires on the backs of human slaves. Somewhere on this planet, Bold's disappearance is connected to an ancient artifact known as the Red Twin ? a power so dangerous that a king, an empress, and a priestess will stop at nothing to control its fate.

Now Tuya must navigate a world of shifting alliances, buried secrets, and a power struggle that stretches back centuries. Every faction wants the Red Twin. Every faction has a different version of the truth.

But the hardest battle isn't out among the stars ? it's the war she's been running from her entire life.

For fans of Brandon Sanderson, Ernest Cline, and Sylvain Neuvel.