The Aetherium Cycle Sundered Star

Rhys is a pilot at the end of his rope, scraping by in the lonely void of the Outer Rim. His only companion is the Stardust Drifter, a relic of a freighter whose best days are a distant memory. So when a shadowy client offers a life-changing sum to transport a single, high-security cryo-pod, he jumps at the chance. The rules are simple: run silent, maintain course, and never, ever scan the cargo.The journey begins in silence, but ends with a cosmic scream. An ancient star on his route doesn't go supernova-it sunders, ripped apart by an impossible, unseen force. The shockwave cripples his ship and awakens what's inside the pod: Aethel, a being of immense power and sorrow, who brings with her a terrifying revelation.The universe is a lie. Reality as we know it is a fragile creation, a "Resonance" shaped by Aethel's kind eons ago. But their ancient enemy, a force of pure entropy called The Silence, has returned. It does not conquer or destroy; it simply erases existence, hunting the last echoes of creation to silence them forever. Rhys has been tricked into becoming the catalyst for Aethel's awakening, and now, he is a primary target.Forced into an impossible alliance, Rhys must pilot the last children of creation on a desperate quest across the galaxy. Their mission: to awaken Aethel's sleeping siblings before The Silence can find and erase them. Their journey will take them through the treacherous, ship-breaking storms of the K'tharr Veil, into the black markets of the Whispering Archive where secrets are a lethal currency, and finally to the Graveyard of Echoes, a haunted realm where the laws of physics are broken and the ghosts of forgotten wars are used as weapons."The Sundered Star" is the first epic novel in "The Aetherium Cycle," a science-fantasy saga perfect for fans of Dune, The Expanse, and the cosmic scope of the MCU. It's a universe of mythic gods, terrifying cosmic horror, and the reluctant, all-too-human heroes caught in a war for the soul of reality itself.