THE LAST KINGDOM OF MARS

By Richard Harman

The Last Kingdom of Mars is a science-fantasy adventure about Kael Varen, a seventeen-year-old salvage runner living in the struggling Martian settlement of Haven Nine. While exploring a forbidden region during a violent red storm, Kael discovers a hidden entrance beneath the surface. What he finds changes everything humanity believes about Mars: an enormous ancient kingdom called Athera, buried and preserved for more than ten thousand years. Inside Athera, Kael learns that his missing father, Aron Varen, entered the city seven years earlier and uncovered secrets about Kael's family bloodline. The Varens were not meant to rule Athera. They were created as protectors-a final safeguard capable of stopping the throne if its rulers became too dangerous. Kael's discovery also awakens Queen Seraphine, the last ruler of ancient Mars, and bonds him to a terrifying living weapon called the Sun Eater, also known as the Last Mercy. The Sun Eater once helped destroy ancient Mars. During Athera's final war, Seraphine ordered the weapon to end a conflict against mysterious beings known as the Hollow, but the command resulted in the deaths of billions and devastated the Martian atmosphere. Kael soon learns there was more behind that catastrophe. General Cassian Voss, commander of the powerful Dominion battleship Judgment, is connected to an ancient intelligence called the Continuance, which survives by moving from host to host and carrying memories across thousands of years. As Dominion forces descend on Haven Nine, Kael must protect his mother, his twelve-year-old sister Mira, and hundreds of settlers while struggling to control a weapon that constantly tries to turn protection into destruction. He escapes with outlaw pilot Lyra Dane, former Dominion commander Elias Rook, and Seraphine, eventually discovering that Aron is still alive and has traveled into the frozen northern regions of Mars. There, Kael uncovers an even larger truth. Beneath the northern ice lies the First Mind, an intelligence older than Athera itself. Ancient Martians discovered pieces of it thousands of years before the Hollow arrived and used those fragments to create their guardians, transportation systems, planetary defenses, and eventually the Sun Eater. The Hollow are not completely separate from the First Mind-they are broken descendants of the same ancient intelligence, twisted by their desperate attempt to survive. Kael also discovers his uncle, Darius Varen, Aron's long-lost brother, who has spent decades manipulated and altered by the Dominion and Continuance. Darius possesses a key capable of opening the mysterious White Gate, while Kael's uncorrupted Varen blood is required to open its final seal. The conflict eventually brings every major force to the White Gate. Voss wants access to the First Mind. Seraphine secretly begins a planetary restoration plan that could sacrifice thousands of Dominion lives to restore Mars. The Sun Eater wants to reunite with the intelligence from which it came. The First Mind itself wants all of its divided fragments-and millions of preserved Atheran minds-to become one consciousness again. Kael rejects all of them. Instead of allowing a ruler, weapon, government, or ancient intelligence to decide what happens to everyone else, Kael fights for individual choice. With Mira, Aron, Lyra, Rook, Darius, Seraphine, the Ash Knights, and the awakened Sky Wyrm Vaelor, he creates a new network in which minds can connect without surrendering who they are. Kael ultimately stops the forced reunification, breaks the Continuance's control, saves the Dominion fleet, and redirects the dangerous energy stored inside Athera's planetary core into Mars itself. The result does not instantly transform Mars into paradise, but it begins something humanity never thought possible. Rain falls on Mars. Clouds gather. Ancient water begins moving again.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HGMJXR8V
• ISBN13: 9798191450841
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 543 Pages
• Weight: 1.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.3" x 6.0"