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.