[1] It takes place ten years after the events of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and centers around a young woman named Oree Shoth, who lives in the World Tree-shrouded, godling-inhabited city of Shadow.

A decade after the events of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms comes the story of Oree Shoth, a young street artist who lives in the city of Sky, which has been unofficially renamed "Shadow" after the growth of the enormous World Tree.

Shadow is a city in which many "godlings"—immortal, demigod children of the gods—live hidden among the mortal citizens, so Oree is not very surprised to find a downtrodden being who is apparently unconscious, yet glowing brightly to her magic-sight, in the trash-strewn alley behind her house.

The New Lights, led by a renegade Arameri fullblood named Serymn and her scrivener husband, Dateh, oppose the Order of Itempas, which has attempted to change mortal society and doctrine in response to the events of the previous novel, which are not widely known.

Oree is left with no choice but to seek allies from among the gods and the Arameri—although both groups would happily kill or use her for their own purposes—in order to defeat the New Lights before their actions can threaten the entire mortal realm.

To conceal the fact that he has been set free from his long enslavement by the Arameri, the Order of Itempas has dubbed him "the Lord of Shadows" in an attempt to brand him as a new god for the purposes of worship.

As an openly godly denizen of Shadow, he runs an organization of disaffected mortals and his fellow godlings, who trade in illegal magic and godsblood, a narcotic.