The Tree of Providence

In a single night in 586 BCE, Jerusalem vanishes in flames.

Daniel ben-Hilkiah is eighteen. Highborn, lettered, raised to serve his people — and now a captive. A hundred days of marching lie ahead of him, across the Mesopotamian desert, with ten thousand other exiles whose keeper he becomes despite himself.

A hundred days to cross the furnace, bury the dead, outwit the betrayals — and to understand that the true ordeal is not the march.

It is what awaits him in Babylon.

For the most powerful empire in the known world offers him what no captive is supposed to deserve: an education, a title, a future. In exchange, he must learn a new language, bear a new name, serve the king who destroyed his city.

The real question is not whether he will succeed.

It is what will be left of him if he succeeds too well.