Among the last recorded words of Emperor Mutshatee, before his execution, were these: “Don’t be fooled.”

In The Obelisk Gate, truth and clarity shine from these pages, except when darkness falls and even then a sure, strong voice always leads you on, leads you through, leads you up and out. But will Essun—once Damaya, one Syenite, now avenger—be fooled? Will the request made of her by Alabaster Tenring, destroyer of the world, seal the fate of the Stillness forever, or is something stranger and even more dangerous in the offing?

And will her daughter Nassun, coming into her full power as an orogene, ever find her mother? Will either of them discover the secret of why the catastrophic Fifth Seasons periodically savage the Stillness?

In this story of their separate journeys to find one another and to uncover the truth of their world’s terrible, cyclic wracking, Essun and Nassun face even greater challenges than they did in The Fifth Season. Greater mysteries, too, with answers offered from strange sources that compel and tantalize, if they can be trusted. If those offering the answers are not trying to play you the fool.