The port city of Kalathon — jewel of the civilized world. For generations, its wealthy rulers have used the patient arts of bribery, marriage, and betrayal to keep the warlike nomads of the steppe divided. When a powerful clan leader threatens this order, Kalathon’s king executes a ruthless plan to defeat the nomads, taking the clan leader’s daughter as a prize.

But the king's prize is more dangerous than he ever imagined.

As she turns the king’s sons against each other and a horde of nomads gathers outside the gates, the woman who was meant to be a trophy plays Kalathon’s own game more skillfully than the men who seek to possess her — the only question is who will be left standing when the dynasty burns, and what kind of ruler will inherit the ashes.

Lush, mythic, and steeped in the texture of a vanished world, The Age of Collapse is an epic of empire, devotion turned to ruin, and the founding of a new age. For readers of Madeline Miller, Guy Gavriel Kay, and Mary Renault — a debut that reads like a myth recovered from the deep past.