Kael Vance won the world’s biggest anonymous strategy tournament by asking his final opponent a question it could not answer. Ten minutes later, burglars break into his home. By dawn, a god offers him a deal. Another world is dying in a war that every god, king, and army has already failed to stop. Kael is not a hero, a mage, or a chosen one. He is simply the one variable fate could not predict. In return for protecting his sister Nyx’s future, Kael gets only a few minutes at a time in a conquered world. No army. No chosen-one powers. No second chances he can afford. To win, he will have to turn prisoners into allies, enemies into a resistance, and an unwinnable war into a game the empire never learned how to play.