The novel “Ashes of Candesce” by Karl Schroeder was published for the first time in 2012. It’s the fifth novel of the Virga series and follows “The Sunless Countries”.

Leal Hieronyma Maspeth, along with other people who came from Virga, ended up on Aethyr, a sphere attached to Virga, and going back is vital to save not only themselves. On Aethyr they meet Keir Chen, a post-human who has no plans of destruction and decides to join humans in defending their artificial hollow planet.

To deal with the threat, Leal, Keir, Antaea Argyre and Hayden Griffin can only turn to Venera and Chaison Fanning but even on Virga there are different factions and the outer enemies have found allies in some of them. The situation becomes more and more complex and in the final clash it becomes difficult to figure out who are the allies and who are the enemies.