The Veil is thinning. And what waits beyond it is waking.
Jack Walker was supposed to spend his life in the refineries of Sloan Station-until he was caught stealing.
Given a choice between prison or service in the secretive order known as the Watchers of the Veil, Walker chose survival. Branded by his past and buried among society's outcasts, he becomes something else entirely: an investigator of the impossible.
His first assignment?
A drifting ship on the edge of known space.
No crew.
No distress call.
And something still alive inside.
Garden Indrasi was born to rule.
Daughter of the Cradle of Humanity, raised in luxury, promised power-until a treaty trades her away. Now bound in marriage to Lord Richter Aires, archon of the desert world Legion, Garden is thrust into a brutal court where alliances are weapons and weakness is fatal.
To survive, she must learn quickly.
To rule, she must become something no one expects.
Kalsh set Hatch dreamed of flying.
But as a Kell-an alien within humanity's empire-his ambitions were never meant to rise that high. Through grit and discipline, he earns command of a frigate in the 13th Fleet, only to find himself at the front lines of a brewing war with the Hegemony of Malakar.
When war erupts, it does not ask who is ready.
It only asks who will survive.
Three lives.
One empire.
A single, impossible truth:
For centuries, the civilizations inside the Veil have believed they were protected-sealed within a stable pocket of space.
They were wrong.
Ships vanish.
Bodies disappear.
Signals come from beyond the barrier.
And something ancient is pressing back.
The Veil is thinning.
And someone must uncover why-before the rot spreading through the stars consumes them all.