Dowyr Mawkin is treated as little more than dirt brushed into a corner. He's long understood that no one wants an ugly, mute orphan boy, especially one that shuns his country's faith. Yet that hasn't stopped the church clergy from trying to argue him into accepting Heaven and the rest of the divine Sentinels.

Whilst wasting away at the orphanage, Dowyr's own boredom triggers an Apex of Emotion, turning him into an Emogician, able to use the Emogic of Boredom to read minds and manipulate the senses. Sent to the Academy of Emogic against his will, he meets an unlikely friend; Weynon Rozbury, an innocent boy whose unwavering faith in Heaven is matched only by his Emogic power of Peace.

As their friendship grows, war comes to the nation's doorstep. The boys are thrown into the heart of the conflict along with Elethe Klausgow, a quietly troubled teenage girl and secretly the most powerful Emogician in history, burdened with the weight of all the emotion around her. The three young Emogicians are expected to help win the war, but how can children face the horrors of bloodshed without losing themselves?