The War Beyond is the second book in the epic fantasy series The Hollow Covenant, written by Andrea Stewart, published by Orbit Books. A sequel that picks after the ending of The Gods Below (and with a superb recap to let the reader jump with fresh memories), continues developing the world and fleshing out the characters, while revealing more about the gods and how the world reached the state it is.

Hakara and the Unanointed rebels are in the hunt for Lithuas; defeating her would be a great blow against Kluehn's plan. On the other side of the conflict lies her sister Rasha; once she longed to be reunited with Hakara, but now she's a Godkiller under Kluehn's orders. However, she's starting to have doubts about Kluehn's teachings, and when she's sent to kill her sister group, her loyalty will be tested to the limit.
In parallel, Mullayne continues investigating the truth about Tolemne, and why the books were wrong; and Sheuan is trying to survive the dangerous Sovereign's court game, all while trying to understand more about how the Sovereign reached his status.

Stewart continues with the difficult task of balancing the number of POVs in this novel, while the reader is invited to know more about the world and how it reached its current situation; it is complicated to talk without entering on spoilers, but there's a good balance between spectacular scenes and emotional heavy ones; after spending so much time with those characters, it is impossible to not develop a bond with them.

As a sequel, it adds a lot to the worldbuilding, especially revealing how the gods reached the current situation and how the knowledge of this world is being changed. The pacing can be a bit irregular due to the number of POVs, but all contributes toward setting up the big revelation at the end.

The War Beyond is a great second book in the Hollow Covenant series, a epic fantasy series whose climate message resonates hard nowadays; if you are looking for a big epic series, you should totally give this one a try!